Lyor Cohen: 'The music industry is facing one of our biggest crises to date.'

<p>Lyor Cohen believes that short-form video poses a major threat to the music business. He also thinks it might be the industry&apos;s savior.<br/><br/>On this MBW Podcast, Cohen – Global Head of Music at YouTube – explains his fears over short-form video platforms that fail to push users into deeper engagement with music and artist content.<br/><br/>&quot;Short-form video that doesn&apos;t lead anywhere is the most dangerous thing I&apos;ve seen the music business face in a long time,&quot; says Cohen. <br/><br/>Cohen believes that, if left unchecked, the rise and rise in music consumption on this type of short-form video platform could become one of the music industry&apos;s &quot;biggest crises to date&quot;.<br/><br/>(Cohen doesn&apos;t mention any particular platforms, but it&apos;s worth noting that there&apos;s been a lot of headlines written on MBW this year about TikTok&apos;s failure – so far, at least – to launch a connected music service to its main platform.)<br/><br/>Cohen argues that YouTube&apos;s approach with its YouTube Shorts product offers an important distinction: A platform that hooks you in with short-form video – but then nudges would-be fans to longer/deeper audio and visual content about artists on both YouTube and YouTube Music.<br/><br/>Cohen lays out three problems he sees growing to a head in the current music business:<br/><br/><b>Problem No.1, he says, is an expectation for modern artists to spend a significant amount of their time, creativity and energy on certain social media platforms – platforms that in Cohen’s view rarely lead to deeper fandom amongst consumers;</b></p><p><b>Problem No.2, he says, lies with consumers themselves – and his concern that the next generation of fans aren’t currently delving deep into artists, their stories, and their catalogs;</b></p><p><b>And Problem No.3, says Cohen, lies at the door of record companies, who are struggling to break artists with regularity in this current digital environment.<br/><br/></b>He believes the migration of fans away f