A presentation on how the internet has impacted the music industry.

1. Music Industry Theory Work
Daniel Grimley

2. Is there an oligopoly of music
producers an record labels who
dominate the market?
• The top four record labels are; Universal Music Group
(UMG), Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group
and Independent Labels. Theses labels control around
88% of the record label industry, so there is a very strong
oligopoly among these four companies and groups who
all hold a great deal of money and power in the industry.

3. To what extent has music production
been transformed by the internet?
• The internet has enabled a whole new way of importing and exporting music. On
the web you can find so many sound effects and pieces of music which can be
legally downloaded to a producers laptop and inserted into their tracks. This saves
both time and money but it does degrade the meaning of the word ‘producer’ as it
isn't music which they are producing. Also, on the internet you can have
instrument simulations, such as; guitars, drums, keyboards and techno-sounds.
This removes the need to have actual musicians to play music to be produced as it
can all be computerized. However there are internet programs and software which
do improve the production of real music. There are programmes now which have
been developed vastly, enabling the mastering process of a track to sound cleaner
and tighter. In addition, the export of music has become a lot easier. Production
companies can now place their music straight onto the web from a laptop, which
can then be bought online by consumers. This has been a huge leap, from the
times when record players and tape decks were all the range, in terms of time,
money and effort.

4. Are there any examples, within the
music industry, that have remained
untouched by the dawn of the internet?
• Advertising and promotion of music has changed since the dawn of the internet,
however there are certain aspects which have remained untouched. For example,
magazines such as Billboard and Kerrang! These magazines are still very popular
amongst music listeners. The internet offers quick promotions of songs by
showing music videos and being able to download the track, whereas magazines
offer pages worth of information about the artist and their new songs. True music
fans want to know about the backgrounds of the songs and artists they enjoy
which is why magazines are still a key process of promotion and advertising.
• In addition to magazines, television music channels are also very popular, such as
MTV. These channels offer all kinds of music from all kinds of eras. The reason
they are still popular is due to the fact people like listening to music at home in
the background or as a louder source for social events. Often people don’t have
speakers loud enough so they use their television. However with technology
continuing to advance, music channels may be reaching the end of their life cycle
as soon louder speakers and music playing technology will be more affordable
and will become a household item rather than a luxury.

5. What impact does the internet have on
the audiences’ behaviour?
• It is extremely easy nowadays to illegally download music and albums
straight to your phone for free from sites such as YouTube converter and
Immerti. Due to this ease it makes the audience perceive this option of free
downloads as an acceptable thing to do. However this kind of downloading
is illegal, meaning in a way, the internet is encouraging people to break the
law. Not only this but free downloads are taking vast amounts of money
away from artists and institutions. An example of this is Taylor Swift’s
dispute with the music streaming site ‘Spotify’. She didn’t want people
listening to her music without getting any money for it, so she removed her
entire music history from the site. Audiences who want to listen to music for
free use this site but, because artists don’t get paid by the site, not all songs
are on there. Unlike the website ‘YouTube’, which has almost every track
imaginable and the artists get paid from YouTube dependent on the
popularity of their video.

6. Should we be talking about the concept
formally known as ‘audience’ with the
age of the prosumer?
• Consumers listening to music via the internet are predominantly teenagers.
Nowadays, younger people are becoming more versatile to using complex
computer programs and software, meaning they are able to produce music from
their own laptops in their bedrooms and for it to be just short of the quality of a
studio produced track. Thousands of young consumers are producing their own
music without the help of any organisation or record label. However these
independent producers aren’t only producers, they listen to the music, consume it,
learn from it and use sections to influence their own sound. Therefore making
them a prosumer, in comparison to general audiences, as these younger
prosumers are doing more than just listen. For example; I’m 18 years old and in a
band, we write our own music and produce it in a bedroom on a laptop. We are
influenced by similar bands and that is reflected in our music, but we also have
our own sound which we produce ourselves, making us prosumers. Young artists
are forever being born and are becoming increasingly better at producing their
own music, challenging the idea of ‘audiences’ and also reducing business for
recording studios.

7. What is the significance of media
convergence at the levels of
ownership, production and reception?
• Ownership – Conglomerates such as Sony and UMG use vertical integration to
produce their own media. They have subsidiaries to produce the music, promote and
market it, license it to other media forms such as film, distribute it and retail it.
Therefore having complete control of the production.
• Production – The production and writing process of a song or album has previously
been focused on what the writer wants the song(s) to sound like. However with media
convergences, music producers might be asked to write a song to go with a new game
trailer. This will then make the producer consider the tempo and genre of the song to
go with the video and the game style. Two forms of media convergence are used here
and it has a huge affect when it comes to producing certain types of music.
• Reception – Music used in multiple media forms and industries, such as gaming and
film, will have a wider range and number of listeners. The audience using these other
forms of media will be forced to listen and discover the converged track which they
may find they love. Then the audience may advertise the song using word-of-mouth
promotion and mention the film or game it is in, which will increase awareness of
these other two media forms linked with the song.

8. What is the significance of media
convergence at the levels of
ownership, production and reception?
• Example 1 (Ownership) – UMG worked with ‘Girls Aloud’ to produce the soundtrack to St.
Tinian's. The song was produced by Polydor Records (subsidiary of Universal Records) and the
film was produced by Universal Studios. UMG had complete control and ownership over the film
and the song.
• Example 2 (Production) – Songs such as Heathens (Twenty One Pilots) and Skyfall (Adele) have
been written and produced with the sole purpose to be the perfect soundtrack for a certain movie
(Suicide Squad and Skyfall in this case). When the writer of Heathens was writing and producing
the song, they would have had to consider the genre which is portrayed in the lyrics, the minor key
of the song and the slow tempo. All the features which can be signified to represent something
negative will have been used to influence the production of this track.
• Example 3 (Reception) – Bastille’s song ‘Send Them Off’ has a music video to it, so film and
music have been blended together to create a common type of media convergence. In addition this
song is one of the songs on ‘Fifa 17’, so here we have music and gaming forming an alliance. This
track alone has had a media convergence with both the film and gaming industries, meaning the
track will reach a wider audience and gain more listeners. Meaning the artist will gain more
popularity which will lead to more downloads, making them more money. Furthermore, songs
accompanied by a music video help to tell the audience the message/story of the song, helping
people to relate and connect to it. And those songs on games will help form a psychological
association, when Fifa fans think of this song, they associate it with Fifa 17 and therefore associate
it with something that they like and enjoy.