VIDEO-SHARING: VEVO THE REVOLUTION.

Britain's Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle's mind-boggling YouTube success is further evidence of video-sharing sites' sway over music fans. But with the launch of Universal's HD-quality VEVO site, are we ushering in a new era of segregation between user-generated content and premium artist videos?

THERE IS A HEALTHY DEBATE TO BE HAD about whether Susan Boyle would have become a global YouTube star without the help of Britain's Got Talent.

Google's video-sharing site is tailor-made for making web celebs out of unremarkable-looking people with remarkable talents. Some 100m video views later - at the time of writing - it almost feels immaterial whether Boyle wins the series or not now. She is already a star on both sides of the Atlantic, following in the footsteps of Paul Potts from first last series.

Yet if one of YouTube's key selling points is the hairbrush divas who let rip into webcams without the backing of a prime-time TV talent show, they are also a problem for the site.

Mixing user-generated content (UGC) with premium videos is not considered to be the ideal sell when it comes to advertising, which has led to an increasingly popular theory: that the reason Google's YouTube revenues lag behind its licensing payments is because of the site's UGC heritage.

Music videos may be one of the most-watched forms of content on YouTube, but if Google could hive them off into a separate site uncluttered by the general population's home videos, it could charge top dollar and maybe - just maybe - pay its bills to the rights-owners.

As we said, it is just a theory. But it will soon be put into practice in the form of VEVO, YouTube's new venture with Universal Music Group (UMG). Except the most intriguing thing about it is that it is not actually a Google venture. Instead, the site and its business relationships will belong to UMG, while Google will simply run the technical side for the major. It is at this point that uncharitable industry types with long memories may start muttering darkly about PressPlay and MusicNet.