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Audiences – Mass or Niche – Global or Local

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It is key that you mention audience in your essays.

Consider who they are in the music industry and start to use the terms – core or niche.

  • Core – the big mass audiences who worldwide consume music – usually pop.
  • Niche – those smaller, more particular audiences who consume sub-genres or follow specific smaller bands.

The Conglomerates will target the Mass/Core audiences.

The Indies are more focused on organic talent and appeasing their more discerning customers.

Where do you fall in this ‘broad’ and slightly naive audience segmentation?

One of the questions might be about audience behaviour so you must be able to talk about your own experiences of consuming and making music (if appropriate) and how you are ‘typical’ of the average music listener nowadays. It might be easier to adopt an approach that shows how you are easily consumed, attracted by the Big 3 to their marketing, image focused approach but also that you enjoy finding, following and listening to less synthetically produced material in the form of indie artists and can much more easily find this type of music because of Digital Technology and more importantly, they can more easily find you!

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Marketing – Cross Media Convergence/Synergy

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  • 4 – 5 clear marketing techniques
  • 2 – 3 impacts
  • 1 link to website or video

Marketing

These are just a few ideas to use for case studies for exciting and innovative ways artists have managed to use marketing to raise their profile.  They are completely up to date so should be valued case studies for the essay.  The template for analysing the case studies is on classroom. If every student does one story then you will have a lovely library of examples to choose from.

Cross Media Convergence – when platforms work for each other i.e. music in a film, music in a video game.

Synergy – when music producers/artists work with other industries to endorse products or promote their own i.e. merchandise, branding, influencers etc.

Exam Paper 1, Information, The Music Industry

Radiohead – Anima – a music industry case study

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You may remember how Radiohead were responsible for forcing a change to how music is passed on to the audience when they uploaded their music in 2007 free and asked for donations. This negated any need for piracy and really showed the record labels who exactly was in charge, in terms of ownership.

They have once again been making headlines with a marketing campaign this year.

This was a trailer played in IMax cinemas. Weird? Thought provoking? Guerilla marketing?

If you are interested in music, this is a fascinating head to head with the Radiohead frontman, Thom Yorke.

But this is ESSENTIAL READING.  Read the article in the latest Media Magazine. Page 48.

Watch the short film on Netflix. This will all make a fabulous case study for marketing, distribution, audience consumption, cross media convergence, viral marketing, guerilla marketing and ownership.

 

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Distribution/Digital Technology

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Interactive demonstration

The Way it used to be……..before digitalisation.

Distribution/Digital Technology

Whilst this stage and marketing are akin, it is worth looking at some specific distribution case studies on the main case study slideshare. Your teacher will allocate these accordingly along with some from the Digital Technology section.

This stage of the process in the Music Industry relates to the way the music will actually get to the customer.

In my day, it was recorded in studio, pressed in a vinyl factory, put in a van/train, delivered to a shop/radio station and then could be listened to.  Time consuming, heavy, costly and bulky.

Now with the digital revolution, it can happen much more quickly, cheaply and a track can have so much more coverage, reaching more audiences worldwide with literally the click of a button.  But with global access comes issues with piracy too and lack of ownership.

Your teacher will allocate some case studies from the slideshare for you to read and share.

Exam Paper 1, Information, The Music Industry

Case Studies/Terms – do them as you go

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You must use the key terms in your essays and always use case studies to illustrate, evidence, support your ideas.

CASE STUDIES -OWNERSHIP/PRODUCTION

From the 2 videos and one slideshare we have done, you should make notes and will already have various examples you can use for case studies. For example:

  • Capitol Record,
  • Universal
  • Funnel Music – Track Not Found
  • Beggars Banquet
  • DIY – IAMDBB or Chance the Rapper
  • Kobalt
  • Snow Patrol
  • Radiohead
  • Jacob Whiteside
  • + multiple IDEAS ON THE SHARED CLASSROOM SLIDESHARES

KEY TERMS/BUZZ PHRASES – OWNERSHIP/PRODUCTION

micropayments, creative control, platforms, music establishment, back catalogue, rights/royalties, contracts, business model, digital revolution, democratisation, digitalisation, globalisation, The Big 3, global institutions, institutions, audiences, investment, antiquated, out of date, investment, music ownership, innovation, adapt or die, pioneering moves, adaptability, indies, niche, promotion, transparency, streaming, downloads, labels, conglomerates.

RESOURCES

Create a Music Industry folder and start saving the resources, worksheets, slideshares, videos in one place for revision. Do it now as you go.

Exam Paper 1, Information, The Music Industry

The Music Industry Part 2 – Ownership – Production

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The Big Three – AKA The Major Labels

The Big 3 labels are dominant players in the music industry.

They are in turn owned by massive media conglomerates.

But, what is a conglomerate?

Slide show on conglomerate in classroom.

So, what does a record label actually do?

And who are the Indies?

This article outlines some of the best indie record labels on the scene.  Click on the arrow on the right of the photo to see who the label is.

Task 1

In groups complete the allocated slide for one of the record labels you have been allocated. The Slideshare is in classroom.

NOTES

Remember when you see a term like ‘institutions’ in a question, then you are being asked to consider those who are responsible to making the media (labels, producers, performers etc).

When you see the term ‘ global institution’ you are specifically looking at the ‘Conglomerates, The Big 3.’

When you see the term ‘audiences’ you are looking at those who consume the music – you.

KEY TERMS/BUZZ PHRASES – OWNERSHIP/PRODUCTION

micropayments, creative control, platforms, music establishment, back catalogue, rights/royalties, contracts, business model, digital revolution, democratisation, digitalisation, globalisation, The Big 3, global institutions, institutions, audiences, investment, antiquated, out of date, investment, music ownership, innovation, adapt or die, pioneering moves, adaptability, indies, niche, promotion, transparency, streaming, downloads, labels, conglomerates.

Exam Paper 1, Information, The Music Industry

The Music Industry – Part 1

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Introduction to Audience and Institutions, The Music Industry.

Task 1

What can you remember so far?

Match the key terms against the various stages of the Music Industry organisational timeline.

Task 2

Music Ownership & Production – A changing model

Watch the video and answer these questions.  

 

This video alone, could give you @ 8 different case studies to use as evidence in an essay about the issues around ‘ownership’, ‘institutions’ or ‘production’ – Kobalt, Universal, Jacob Whiteside, Radiohead, Capitol, Sony, Spotify.