Research into the Music Industry

Music videos are the combination of both song and images to accompany the song, they are often used as marketing exercises to increase sales figures. Music videos sparked a revolutionwithin the music industry, this is down mainly to MTV's prominance in the 80's that gave teenagers growing up in that era the nickname of the 'MTV generation'. Music videos are usually as long as the song is, but some can go on for up to 10 minutes, this is down to theastronomical budgets some music artists get for there videos, which can be in to the millions.
There are many places to watch music videos; MTV, BET SCUZZ, KERRANG TV, and the internet, to name a few. This means that music videos often contain a message, not onlypromoting the band itself but other causes such as, global warming, animal cruelty and poverty.
Music videos are a useful tool for up and coming bands and nowadays with artists such as Lady GaGa, the crazier the video the high the sales figures.

However, there has been a steep decrease in sales figures from $14.6 billion in 1999 to $10.4 billion in 2008 , this has been accredited with file sharing sites such as Napster and Limewire, which allow people to share music files for free all over the world. The music industry wasdominated by the "big 5" companies meaning it was an oligopoly, but the "big 5" turned to the "big 4" when Sony purchased BMG then Universal was taken over by EMI making it the "big 3". With the increasing use of digital downloads due to companies such as iTunes making more accessible to the masses, CD sales have dropped by 20% since 2009.

Music has become increasingly easier to access with sites such as YouTube and Spotify, where audiences can listen to music or watch music videos for free as long as they listen or watch downloads adverts, this means music has an ever increasing audience. The internet has both helped anddamaged to music industry as there is a wider audience but the audience has more access to music making it easier to share it for free with other consumers.