Most Viewed Videos on YouTube in 2015 - as featured on Promo News

So here we are at the end of 2015 - another bumper year for music videos in terms of creativity and sheer quantity of work. And at times it even seemed that average budgets might be creeping higher. As the year draws to a close, the reality is that the increasing importance of streaming services to the music industry offers an intriguing but also uncertain future.

Well, we'll see what 2016 brings. In the meantime, we've just worked out which of the videos we've featured on Promo News this year which notched the greatest number of YouTube views - the numbers based on our own database figures, and relate to videos we featured from January 1 2015 onwards.

These are the ones that did make money - and the ones that bear out what the analysts say, that music videos are not really promos any more, but the actual product. Its certainly dominated by a familiar selection of (overwhelmingly female) pop stars. But out in front at no. 1, and entirely bucking that trend, is Tim Erem's Mumbai-shot video Major Lazer & DJ Snake ft MØ's Lean On (above). That's almost reached the billion views mark - and that's in nine months since its March '15 release.

It's closely followed by Maroon 5's saccharine multi-wedding video for Sugar, and Georgia Hudson's video for Ellie Goulding's Love Me Like You Do, from the 50 Shades Of Grey soundtrack - with Xavier Dolan's video for Adele's Hello already having had over 850 million views in just two months.  

1 Major Lazer & DJ Snake ft MØ 'Lean On' by Tim Erem - 966,439,926 views
2 Maroon 5 'Sugar' by David Dobkin - 955,530,269
3 Ellie Goulding 'Love Me Like You Do' by Georgia Hudson - 885,111,027
4 Adele 'Hello' by Xavier Dolan - 854,328,358
5 Taylor Swift 'Bad Blood' by Joseph Kahn - 687,005,798
6 Sia 'Elastic Heart' by Sia and Daniel Askill - 491,209,881
7 Skrillex and Diplo feat. Justin Bieber 'Where Are Ü Now' by Brewer - 387,038,208
8 The Weeknd 'Can't Feel My Face' by Grant Singer - 321,044,092
9 Rihanna and Kanye West and Paul McCartney 'FourFiveSeconds' by Inez & Vanoodh - 314,619,596
10 Calvin Harris & Disciples 'How Deep Is Your Love' by Emil Nava - 312,240,700
11 Taylor Swift 'Wildest Dreams' by Joseph Khan - 305,007,200
12 One Direction 'Drag Me Down' by Ben & Gabe Turner - 273,494,808
13 Madonna 'Bitch I'm Madonna' by Jonas Akerlund - 153,527,537
14 Ed Sheeran 'Photograph' by Emil Nava - 133,915,001
15 Big Sean 'Blessings' (feat. Drake and Kanye West) by Darren Craig - 126,634,090
16 Little Mix 'Black Magic' by Director X - 126,093,672
17 Carly Rae Jepsen 'I Really Like You' by Peter Glanz - 123,109,683
18 Rachel Platten 'Fight Song' by James Lees - 116,289,198
19 One Direction 'Perfect' by Sophie Muller - 106,477,158
20 Naughty Boy ft Beyoncé & Arrow Benjamin 'Runnin' (Lose It All)' by Charlie Robins - 103,015,310

And of course these were not the only videos that posted gigantic viewing figures on YouTube in 2015. Of the ones that came out last year, the top 3, led by Taylor Swift's Shake It Off, had more views than 14 videos in the Top 20 above. 

1 Taylor Swift 'Shake It Off' by Mark Romanek - 463,103,839
2 Shakira ft. Carlinhos Brown 'La La La (Brasil 2014)' by Jaume De Laiguana - 439,655,851
3 Iggy Azalea ft Charli XCX 'Fancy' by Director X - 427,355,348
4 Nicki Minaj 'Anaconda' by Colin Tilley - 365,596,256
5 Calvin Harris 'Summer' by Emil Nava - 341,991,406
6 Taylor Swift 'Blank Space' by Joseph Kahn - 330,717,003
7 Katy Perry 'This Is How We Do' by Joel Kefali - 211,549,838
8 Iggy Azalea ft Rita Ora 'Black Widow' by Director X - 200,706,087
9 PSY 'Hangover' ft. Snoop Dogg by PSY - 171,435,654
10 DJ Snake & Lil Jon 'Turn Down For What' by DANIELS - 165,275,680
11 Charlie XCX 'Boom Clap' by Sing J Lee - 123,131,429
12 Justin Bieber ft Chance The Rapper 'Confident' by Colin Tilley - 119,309,951
13 Sam Smith 'I'm Not The Only One' by Luke Monaghan - 115,963,004
14 Sigma 'Nobody To Love' by Craig Moore - 105,132,751
15 Mark Ronson ft Bruno Mars 'Uptown Funk' by Cameron Duddy & Bruno Mars - 88,998,840

And there were a few more we didn't manage to feature on Promo that have posted big figures too. That's the power of music videos on YouTube in a nutshell. So here below is a playlist of the Top 20 most YouTube views of videos featured on Promo News...