Industrial Context

  Timeline of Music Videos:

• 1926- The 'Talkies' were introduced, this involved musical short films featuring bands, vocalists and dancers
• 1930- 'Screen songs' were introduced. This included a series of cartoon films which encouraged audiences to sing along by following a marker
• 1964- The Beatles became one of the most famous bands in the world with their modern music video for 'A Hard Days Night'
• 1981- The music channel MTV was created. This enabled music videos to play a central part in music marketing by the mid 1980's 
• 1984- Michael Jackson released his music video 'Thriller’, which proved to be a big hit
• 1985- The music channel VH1 was launched. This featured a range of soft music to suit an older audience helping to broaden the audience of music videos
• 1988- Hip Hop began to increase in popularity 
• 1992- Director names were shown in the credits of music videos
• 1995- Michael Jackson’s music video ‘Scream’ becomes one of the most expensive music videos, costing a total of 7million dollars to create
• 2005- ‘iTunes’ opens allowing people to download their favourite tracks from the computer
• 2005- The online entertainment website ‘YouTube” was created enabling music lovers to access their favourite music videos online. This resulted in an increase of new artists
• 2010- The number of music videos viewed online begins to massively increase
• 2010- Lady Gaga’s music video ‘Poker Face’ reaches one billion views

Contemporary context:

The music industry is concentrated and dominated by three main players. The three largest record labels are Universal Music Group (32% market share), Sony Music Entertainment (20%), and Warner Music Group (16%) - hold a 68% share of the music recording market.

How companies finance their products?

Typically, labels front the money for music video production. Since record labels are the beneficiaries of the royalties that come from those videos, it's usually their obligation to pay for them. Artists who are not signed need to be self-financed. Most streaming revenue comes from user subscription fees for services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited. In simple terms, the DSPs divvy their pools of subscription revenue according to the number of times a track was streamed in a particular month.

How do companies distribute their products?

A lot of music videos are distributed through distribution services, including Ditto, PeakSound, RouteNote and CDBaby which are some of the most popular streaming services. People also use platforms such as YouTube in order to maximise their audience and increase their viewings. From this many, there is a wide range of well-known apps that will be useful in order to help promote the song, for example: Spotify, Apple Music, Vevo and Tidal. These all require the artists to use music video distributors to deliver their content and have it viewable on these platforms. Artists will also get the benefit of accessing a verified artist account for each of these platforms.

How do companies exchange their products?

Streaming royalties and digital downloads are two of the most common ways music videos make money. Whenever a song is streamed on services like Spotify or Apple Music, the artist will earn a royalty. The amount an artist earns from streaming royalties varies depending on how popular their song is.

How do audiences access music videos?

Most music videos are consumed through platforms such as YouTube. YouTube is the largest and most popular resource for online music videos. There's a huge number of official music videos that you can watch for free, as well as a plethora of user-made videos that cover every conceivable topic.

Beggars Group:

Beggars Group are one of the largest independent groups of labels in the world. The label was born in 1977 with the 7th release of 'Free Admission Single' by The Lurkers. Success was quick to follow via one of the first signings, Gary Numan. The label was founded by Martin Mills and Paul Redding is the CEO of Beggars Group. The Beggars Group now comprises many of the world's most respected independent labels and currently has 5 primary active labels including 4AD, Matador Records, Rough Trade, XL Recordings and Young. They self-distribute digitally and to US indie stores. They have numerous Brit, GRAMMY® and Mercury Music Prize wins among them, including Adele, Radiohead, The Lurkers, Dizzie Rascal and The Prodigy. 

 

Codes and Conventions: