San Francisco - Major record label Universal Music Group is generating "tens of millions of dollars" from Google's YouTube, the company told CNET News.com this week. "(YouTube) is not like radio, where it's just promotional," Rio Caraeff, executive vice president of the label's eLabs digital division, told News.com. "It's a revenue stream, a commercial business. It's growing tremendously. It's up almost 80 percent for us year-over-year in the U.S. in terms of our revenue from this category."

While Caraeff declined to give specific details on Universal's YouTube revenue, a source close to the label told News.com that the label will likely book nearly $100 million in revenue from video streaming this year -- which includes placements on other sites like MySpace and MTV.

"It's really coming to fruition I think in part due to YouTube's recent focus on monetization, and really trying to drive revenue around premium content more so than they have in the history of their short existence," Caraeff added.

"They have finally turned their spotlight on 'How do we turn this into a business?' And that's benefiting the entire ecosystem of content owners as well."

Universal Music is also working with YouTube on "a variety of new concepts and new businesses," Caraeff told News.com.

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