YouTube Music Exec Departs Over Delayed Launch

Chris LaRosa, the executive in charge of YouTube’s nascent – and as yet unlaunched – music streaming service, is leaving the company, the Wall Street Journal reports today. This is the second person to occupy that position and leave it within the last 12 months, and both departures seem to be partially because of delays in launching the service that we’ve been hearing about since last year. According to the report, LaRosa is leaving the Google-owned video company and heading to a new startup tech company.

The report also offers some more insight into why the service’s launch has been delayed. Apparently the people in charge simply can’t come to a consensus on what the service will offer, and how it’ll charge users, and early versions of the service would allow users to keep playing tunes when switching to other apps, allowing for limited offline song storage, and – best of all – no advertisements.

But the constant delays in getting the service off the ground may cause problems in terms of negotiating license agreements with rights holders. We’ve already heard about YouTube looking to strong arm independent labels, and it seems as though labels that have already signed on are less than thrilled with YouTube’s progress so far. In short, YouTube needs to figure out a way to get this thing off the ground, or it could jeopardize its future before it even gets started.

If LaRosa is leaving YouTube partially because of these delays, will his departure make the delays worse? It seems likely that the answer is ‘yes,’ though it wouldn’t be too surprising if Google and YouTube manage to find a willing replacement in short order. The real question is whether or not whoever steps in can do things any differently and finally make YouTube’s music streaming service a reality.

[Source: WSJ]