For all the talk about TikTok and its impact on the music industry, much less has been said about YouTube in recent years. George Karalexis and Donna Budicathe co-founders and CEO and COO, respectively, of YouTube strategy firm Ten2 Media want to change that. “YouTube is so underserved by the music industry. Traditionally, it was just a place to upload your music video,” Karalexis says of the platform where Justin Bieber, Troye Sivan and Maggie Rogers were discovered.
“It's evolved so much now,” Budica adds.
With the 2021 introduction of Shorts, YouTube's video equivalent of Instagram Reels and TikTok, the duo saw an opportunity to start a company specializing in YouTube. “YouTube is like nothing else. It's an ecosystem,” Budica says. “Shorts, Live Streams, Longer Videos, Music Videos, YouTube Music.”
Unlike the plethora of YouTube distributors and rights management companies that simply collect money from the platform and send artists and labels a check for whatever they've earned, Ten2 sees itself as a high-touch service that handles YouTube rights collection, but also helps clients develop platform-specific content strategy. These services include helping artists and labels create profitable live streams for their videos, creating playlists for their songs, collecting dollars from user-generated covers, and developing strategies to attract new audiences with Short their. While Bulletin board has reported several stories about rights managers using fraudulent programs to remove rights from YouTube — often from unsuspecting independent artists who don't have access to the streaming service's content management system (CMS) — Ten2 offers customers a “completely transparent” dashboard, Karalexis says, that provides “educational tools, greater understanding about analytics—like what's working, what's not working—why and how to accelerate development,” says Budica, concluding his thought.
Karalexis and Budica's clients include Warner Records, Rhino Records and several distributors who wish to remain anonymous, and they say they've had great success with clients such as Brent Faiyaz, Benson Boone, blink-182's Travis Barker and NLE Choppa. name a few and have helped Christian artists Maverick City Music and Don Moen earn six figure incomes on YouTube alone through smart strategy.
With data analytics firm Kantar reporting that YouTube Music was the “most adopted music streaming service” for the second quarter of 2024 and Luminate finding that YouTube Shorts are nearly on par with TikTok when it comes to US music listeners who use the platform — more than 30% — Karalexis and Bouditsa argue that YouTube has a strong future. “We saw the writing on the wall,” Karalexis says.
Karalexis says he was given this guitar after seeing his first Eric Clapton concert in 1992. “That experience changed my life and made me want to pursue music.”
Yasara Gunawardena
Should all artists use a service like Ten2, or are there artists who do better on YouTube with your guidance?
GIORGOS KARALEXIS: If you don't have a partner who understands YouTube [and has access to its CMS]then you are platform blind. It's not like Spotify and Apple, which have exactly that [similar] systematic approach where the song just sits there. YouTube is part social network, part streaming service. So if you're actively creating content on it, you'll see a lot of upside that you've created. Spotify and Apple also don't share how often listeners skip a song or how long they listen to your songs. If you get a partner with access to the YouTube CMS, you can really understand who your audience is and who your potential audience is.
You've had success working with Christian artists. What makes this genre stand out from others?
KARALEXIS: We found that Christian is based on the song and not the artist. House bands in churches play many covers of popular Christian songs. Don Moen has written huge songs that are covered over and over again, and the covers are even bigger than the original. Through this process, we realized that there were many rights to claim. We've also found success using keywords that Christians are searching for, such as “Sunday prayer,” “worship,” and things like that. YouTube is the second largest search engine for people behind Google, so these keywords really work to drive traffic. It's also very lyric-driven and heavy-drinking. We started a 24/7 live stream like study Lofi Girl beats video and it was huge. We found that people watch these streams for an average of one hour and 50 minutes. Another example: We also work with a few megachurch pastors. They have such a die-hard following that they tune in. They might get 1,000 people in person, but on YouTube they'll have 15,000 to 20,000.
DONNA BUDICA: But all of these approaches are genre-cognitive. It doesn't matter if it's hip-hop or Christian or whatever. Everyone can benefit from a live stream or a lyric video or keywords.
What makes Short stand out in the short form video space?
KARALEXIS: When someone opens the YouTube app on their phone, their mindset is very different than if they just choose to click on TikTok or Instagram. It is [typically] someone who follows for a long time, someone who wants to get frequent updates from a person they subscribe to, while TikTok builds rapidly on virality. We treat Shorts as a brand builder — fans of embedding versus consuming audio.
“Disraeli Gears by Cream is my first memory of music,” Karalexis says. “I remember going through my dad's vinyl collection and always asking for this to be played.”
Yasara Gunawardena
Recently, many companies have moved away from creating high-quality music videos for singles. Why do you think that is?
BUDICA: YouTube is no longer a place where an artist has to put out a very expensive music video every season and leave. Consistency is key and the YouTube algorithm rewards it. If you continuously post a long video [shot on an iPhone] weekly or monthly is better.
KARALEXIS: Hip hop made it first. They would do these lifestyle videos where it's them with their cars, their friends. They project the life their lyrics sell.
Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl has joined the company from YouTube. Is this leadership one of the reasons why WMG hired Ten2?
KARALEXIS: Our relationship predates Robert. We started working with Warner in late 2021, early 2022. I think [Warner Records co-chairman/COO] Tom Corson he's a really smart guy and he's always trying to find a competitive edge and find ways to serve artists in a different way.
Does the restructuring at Atlantic Music Group affect you and your artist clients?
KARALEXIS: No, we work mainly with Warner Records. We also serve some indie labels and artists that are not in the public domain.
YouTube is trying to launch a TV equivalent to rival Netflix and other streaming platforms. How will this affect your artists?
KARALEXIS: We are already seeing huge explosions in television consumption. It's the next frontier. It's so hard to crack an artist on a phone because of the barrage of notifications you get there. Sometimes I don't even remember what content I've seen because I've been so distracted. You're not on TV [barraged]so it has a lot of potential.
Budica says her degree reminds her to “maintain a beginner's mind while continuing to build on the tools, fundamentals and passion for business that Wharton gave me during my formative years.”
Yasara Gunawardena
Videos created or assisted by artificial intelligence are starting to appear on social media. Will increasing AI content hurt your customers' chances of breaking through the noise?
BUDICA: Any kind of milestone in technological developments could be malicious. But the reality is, it's here and it can speed up content creation. This is how we choose to approach it.
KARALEXIS: Yes, what can you do? Raise your hands? Then you will be left behind. We must embrace it. We've seen it help Don Moen's content creation. AI has helped him tremendously to quickly create lyric videos and increase their output. We have a lyric-video generator and it can do, for example, 50 versions a day.
Is this the future of short-form video platforms — creating a million versions of the same thing?
BUDICA: I'll say a soft no. This is not a blind extraction of tension. It's good to experiment, but it's about showing things that resonate with your audience and using analytics to understand what's working.
The last year has seen an influx in catalog sales and viral increases for decades-old songs. What are the opportunities on YouTube for directory marketing?
KARALEXIS: Mass. Repositioning is important here. Donna came up with this “surface” idea. For someone who has died or can no longer produce new material in a traditional way, the method has always been the same: a remaster, a reissue, but there's so much more we can do now. You can restore the artist in several ways. For example, with the Beatles on YouTube, you could create a bunch of playlists [videos that play in a particular order] based on keywords and topics such as “Beatles Audio Songs”, “Love Beatles Songs”. Sometimes it's as simple as remastering their old videos to 4K and uploading them in higher quality. We are very bullish on the list and in deep discussions with some estates.
Have you worked with big companies, including WMG, but do you think there is a risk that the big companies will ever try to replicate your process in-house?
KARALEXIS The majors could do it [in-house]but shrink and consolidate. It would be difficult and strange for them to build what we did from scratch in-house.
“A lot of the artwork in my office, including this one, was designed by my dad, who came here on a boat from Italy [and] he's an aerospace engineer,” Budica says. “His name is on the moon, but he also designed album covers in the 60s.”
Yasara Gunawardena
