UTH launches ClipYou music video service

Russian broadcaster UTH has launched a new music video portal linked to its Muz TV music channel. ClipYou will offer ad-supported on-demand video streaming of music clips from a catalogue of over 33,000 clips from Russian and international music companies including Universal Music, Warner Music, Sony Music, and EMI.

ClipYou will target 11-35 year-olds, with 11-25 year-olds indentified as the core audience. Users will be able to create their own channels. ClipYou also plans to introduce an uploading facility enabling new artists to upload content to the site as well as applications for mobile devices and social networking features.

ClipYou will be headed by Andrey Dimitrov, CEO of Muz TV.

Dmitry Sergeev, COO of UTH Russia, said: “We are delighted to present our new strategic project ClipYou which ideally fits our portfolio as a logical and timely online addition to the Muz channel. Video advertising market in Russia is rapidly growing and will continue its growth with the increasing demand for this type of advertising and new advertising instruments as well as gradual legalisation of audio and video online content. ClipYou offers a vast collection of music videos and a number of interesting services. It is not just another video hosting but an opportunity to create your own online music TV. We are confident that the portal will be popular with the audience.”

UTH, backed by entrepreneur Alisher Usmanov, recently made news when it struck a deal with Disney whereby the latter agreed to take a 49% stake in its other channel Seven in order to use it as a base to launch a free-to-air Disney service in Russia.