Watch out, VMAs, YouTube is coming for you. Yep, the video sharing site has announced that it will be hosting its own music awards to celebrate the viral hits and musicians that have been racking up the view counts and likes over the past year.
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In an official blog post, the team explains that the first-ever YouTube Music Awards will feature a mix of popular musicians and web celebs, with artists like Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire and Eminem set to perform alongside YouTube stars like Lindsey Stirling and CDZA. It has also roped in Grammy Award-winning music video director Spike Jonze as creative director, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World star Jason Schwartzman as host and production company Sunset Lane Entertainment and the team over at VICE to act as executive producers.
The event will take place in New York on 3 November and will feature cross overs from Seoul (yes, the PSY rumours start now), Moscow, London and Rio. Plus, (because, hello, it’s YouTube), it’ll also be live streamed for the service’s billion-plus users around the world.
While there’s no hint about whether YouTube’s award show will be home to the same level of crazy antics we’ve come to expect from MTV’s effort, YouTube says to expect nominees to roll out new parodies, interviews, fan videos and collaborations in the run up to the event. It will be determining the nominees based on which videos and artists received the most views and shares over the past year (so expect Miley Cyrus, PSY, Katy Perry and Robin Thicke to make the short list), and announce the finalists on 17 October.
YouTube doesn’t go into specifics about how the winners will be chosen, with Marketing Vice President Danielle Tiedt simply saying fans will be called on “to determine the songs and artists honoured, by sharing the nominees across social media so the awards are judged in full view of everyone.”
