Industrial Context: Contemporary Context and Research

 

The three main conglomerates that dominate the music industry are Universal Music Group, Sony music and Warner Music Group. The rest of the industry consists of independent labels like Beggars group, that give less mainstream artists the opportunity to break their way into the industry. These artists mainly stay in the indie and alternative genre, as they are less popular than artists picked up by the major record labels. 

As these companies are so large and successful, they have huge budgets for music videos, whereas the more independent record labels don’t have as much money to spend on videos, so don’t use as expensive or advanced technology. This tends to work nicely in creating a ‘homemade’ sort of video style, that reflects the artists’ values and beliefs towards mainstream media and excessive spending. 

 

Finance:

Music videos make money through direct means like, Advertising, Product placement, Digital Downloads and Sponsorship, but also through indirect means, such as streaming royalties and digital downloads, affiliate commissions, touring and live performances, merchandise sales and licensing. These indirect means are influenced by the population of the video, which leads to greater sales and attention for these other aspects like merchandising. 

Distribution:

The main way that music videos are distributed today is digitally, through distributors like Ditto, PeekSound, RouteNote and CDBaby, who allow artists’s videos to be viewed on top streaming platforms like AppleMusic, Vevo and Spotify. The more mainstream the distributer, the further the music videos can be viewed by an audience, however, these larger distributers take higher percentages of commissions made from the videos. Uploading music videos officially to Youtube is a great way of gaining lots of views, promoting fan interaction in the comments, and gaining money through monetisation. Most artist’s social media platforms heavily promote music videos with links to YouTube, allowing them to increase viewership and therefore, profit.