Music in Television and Video
Music in Television and Video
“Keep your eyes open”
TV has grown as music industry has shrunk
TV=key income source (via licensing for performance rights), prime marketing vehicle, national stage for exposure, A&R (shows like Idol, The Voice)
- Pro’s and Con’s of artists on reality shows:
- Pros: Exposure, Built in audience for labels
- Cons: No label push, sometimes not respected
Music Variety & Talk Shows: American Bandstand & Soul Train, The Ed Sullivan Show (Beatles)
- Feature the hottest bands from the week’s charts
Spots on late night shows and morning shows are highly-coveted by labels
- often lead to an increase in record sales and “buzz”
Music Specials/Events/Awards Shows: Super Bowl, Grammys, VMAs, CMAs, Emmys, Oscars, etc.
- an award is often less impactful on sales than a live performance during the show
- huge undertaking (lots of $) to put on these shows (however, $ made as well, from home videos, online streaming, & licensing overseas)
- offers employment opps. for wide array of creative individuals (studio musicians, backup singers, sound engineers)
Theme Songs –Fresh Prince, The Addams Family, etc. – a vital part of the TV scene
- Some hits stem from shows
- “I’ll Be There For You” by The Rembrandts / TV Show: Friends
- Become a part of American Culture
Background Music: majority of TV music serves as “background” music-creates mood, fills gaps, provides cultural context, etc.
Foreground Spotlights: many shows utilize what’s called a “back sell”-tells viewers at end of show what music was ft., displays album cover, sends viewers to network’s site to buy the album
Singer-Actors: Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, etc. (great way to attract a different fan base and grow your national presence)
- –**LABELS LOVE THIS**
- Built in fan base
The Evolving TV Picture: 99% of American households have at least one TV set—>leads to the ability to connect w/ audience who might not otherwise be exposed to music
TV options: We are ingesting TV on our own terms.
Pay-Per-View: delivers events, such as concerts, movies, & sporting events
Video-On-Demand Programming: users can choose precise viewing times, as well as rewind/fast-forward/pause
Interactive Programming: viewers use their PCs, phones, tablets, etc. to interact w/ a program (ie quizzes, contests, voting)
- Main goal: to increase the time that a viewer “sticks” with a program—>this makes these programs more appealing to advertisers
Live tweeting
DVRs: great for consumers, but put pressure on advertisers to develop commercials that viewers might choose to watch (ie Super Bowl)
MTV & Music Videos: MTV is the pioneer & champion of “music television”
- -has shifted its programming from primarily ft. music vids, to fewer vids and more original shows
- -sparked the growth of the music video production business
- -video quickly became a standard promotional tool for major-label acts in the 80s & 90s (marketing execs. realized its marketing power)
- -**We are consuming videos differently (now more social media, YouTube, Vevo)
Production of Short-Form Videos (aka Music Vids): demands many of the same personnel as long-form projects (ie directors, producers, editors, special FX experts, etc.)
Record companies often produce the videos (they either share the costs or charge all costs to an artist’s royalty account)
Rise of product placement in vides since budgets have shrunk.
Most record comps don’t have in-house producers – instead, they have “video commissioner” who oversees video assignments for all of the label’s acts
The production process: labels reach out to video production comp. – each potential director will come up w/ a concept (often given direction from label w/ the majority of ideas being their own) – prod.comp’s producer will give to video commissioner 3 things:
- The director’s treatment (1-3 pg. script)
- Design aids (photos/scenes from movies/other works to illustrate their vision
- Budget (should fit w/in label’s #)
Then, vid commissioner narrows it down at goes to artist/management/creative team at label to decide who got the gig
Selected producer then seeks a production designer & possibly a choreographer, and proceeds to set up a shooting schedule and finally shoot the video. Differences may arise over “artistic control”-however, artist contracts dictate how videos are to be handled (final product, & approval on edits, belongs to label). Music Vid Economics & Distribution: budgets are down from the mid 80s to the late 90s (used to be high 6 figures, occasionally over a million)
Vevo created in 2009-platform for music video playback & the placement of music vids on 3rd party platforms (YouTube)
- Vevo, an abbreviation for ‘video evolution’, is an American multinational video hosting service founded on December 8, 2009, as a joint venture between the “big three” record companies, Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment (SME) and Warner Music Group (WMG).
- Vevo only hosts music videos from both Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment syndicated on YouTube and its website, with Google and Vevo sharing advertising and similar benefits. EMI also licensed its library of videos for Vevo shortly before its launch and its acquisition by UMG in 2012. Originally, Warner Music Group was reported to be considering hosting its content on the service after it launched, but formed an alliance with rival MTV Networks (now Viacom Media Networks). In August 2015, Vevo expressed renewed interest in licensing music from Warner Music Group,[12] and its deal with WMG was completed on August 2, 2016, making the entirety of the “big three” record companies’ music eligible for licensing for Vevo.
- Vevo controls advertising around its videos, and much of this revenue is collected by labels (for big vids, often tens of thousands of dollars)
Can anyone upload videos to Vevo?
- How to get your music video on Vevo. You can only upload your music videos or set up a new artist channel through one of Vevo’s official partners. When you upload to Vevo through Ditto Music, you’ll keep 100% of your royalties, so every penny you earn through the platform goes straight into your pocket.
