Labels silent on news of Lyor Cohen’s move to YouTube

The arrival of the sometimes abrasive, sometimes charming Lyor Cohen as the new face of Google’s YouTube was met with stony silence when On the Money called the record labels for comment.

Cohen, who used to run recorded music at Warner Music Group and helped put Def Jam on the map, has been running his own Google-backed label, 300 Entertainment, for the past few years.

He also suffered a pulmonary embolism and was hospitalized in April, but bounced back and is ready to take on a set of nightmarish problems — like persuading labels not to yank their videos off YouTube, for one.

Not a single label would offer any comment on his arrival as YouTube’s new boss of global music. But leave it to fearless music manager Irving Azoff to plant a flag, telling On the Money earlier this week, “As a prolific manager, label executive and label owner, Lyor has a long history as a defender of artist rights.

“We are counting on you, Lyor, to lead YouTube to provide fair payments to artists and give them more creative control. Congratulations, Lyor, I know you can get it done,” Azoff added.

It seems that more of the tech giants are looking to use the same strategy Apple did when it brought aboard music vet Jimmy Iovine, and what Spotify did when it hired talent manager Troy Carter. But OTM would bet the relationship between the record labels and YouTube is going to get worse before it gets better — with or without Cohen.