INSTITUTIONS AND AUDIENCES

MUSIC INDUSTRYINTRODUCTION TO

PRODUCTION, DISTRIBUTION AND

MARKETING

AIMS

• To understand the focus for the Audience and Institutions section of your June Exam

• To understand the structure of a Media Triangle

• To understand the different sectors of the music industry

KEY TERMS

Audience

Institution

Production

Subsidiary

Distribution

Marketing

Exhibition

Horizontal Integration

Vertical Integration

THE EXAMSection B: Institutions and

Audiences Candidates should be prepared to understand and discuss the processes of production, distribution, marketing and exchange as they relate to contemporary media institutions, as well as the nature of audience consumption and the relationships between audiences and institutions. In addition, candidates should be familiar with:

•the issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice;

•the importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing;

•the technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of production, distribution, marketing and exchange;

•the significance of proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and audiences;

•the importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences;

•the issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences (specifically, British) by international or global institutions;

•the ways in which the candidates’ own experiences of media consumption illustrate wider patterns and trends of audience behaviour.

This unit should be approached through contemporary examples in the form of case studies based upon one of the specified media areas.

MEDIA TRIANGLES

Institution

Target Audience

Media Text

Who has produced the

media text

What they have

produced

Who it is produced for.

Devise your own example for a Lady Gaga album.

THE Music PROCESS

PRODUCTION

DISTRIBUTION

EXHIBITION

There are three distinct areas of the music industry.

Each one of these could be viewed as a type of media institution.

What would you expect to happen at each stage?

• Production involves the creation of the media product and is the responsibility of the PRODUCTION COMPANY Label at the bottom of the food chain.

• This includes all pre-production, production & post-production processes.

• Before that the writer/artist/producer must find finance for an album– which may come from an parent (umbrella) corporation (a company who owns smaller labels).

•Recod Labels are responsible for prints and marketing:PRINTS – producing physical copies of an album for release and finding the exhibitors/retailers to sell the albumMARKETING – raising audience awareness and anticipation of a new release

•A distributor may:-Be a part of the same parent company as the production company-Have a long term arrangement with a production company and provide financial assistance for many of their productions-Provide financial assistance for a single track/album by a production company/record label-Acquire a record after it has completed production

•An album will likely have different distributors for:-Releases in different countries-Different forms, i.e. iTunes

• Exhibition has taken many forms:- Home – the distributor is paid by the

company who is selling the film for a copy, i.e. HMV

- iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, YouTube, LimeWire, Torrents

• An album is often exhibited through non-profitable means. This is how the institutions drive audiences to buy their product Radio, television, adverts, music videos.

ARE THERE ANY OTHER METHODS OF EXHIBITION NOT MENTIONED ABOVE?

HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL INTEGRATION

PRODUCTION

Often a single parent company will own multiple companies in the music

industry.

This is divided into two types of ownership:

PRODUCTION PRODUCTION

HORIZONTAL

The parent company owns multiple companies at the same stage of the music industry. A smaller company, owned by the parent is a subsidiary.

VERTICAL

The parent company owns multiple companies across different stages of the music industry.

What are the advantages for a parent company of each type of ownership?

EXHIBITION

DISTRIBUTIONFor example Walt Disney also owns:

•Miramax Films

•Hollywood Pictures

•Pixar Animation

For example WMG owns:

•Atlantic Records, who is a parent company to:

-Fueled by Ramen and Bad Boy Records.

-WMG once own by Time Warner

RESEARCH TASK - THE LIFE OF AN ALBUM

1. YOUR ALBUM

Provide a brief description of the album.

Include some of your film’s marketing materials (trailers, posters, cast interviews etc.)

2. PRODUCTION

What was your records production budget? Is this information available?

Which record label provided the finance? What other albums have the company (s) produced?

3. DISTRIBUTION

Who is distributing your album? How many countries has it been distributed in and what are they?

4. EXHIBITION

How successful was your albums release, do you have any numbers to support this?

What formats is your album available on for home exhibition?

5. HORIZONTAL & VERTICAL INTEGRATION

Is your album’s record label a subsidiary of a larger company (Horizontally Integrated)?

Are there any signs of horizontal integration between your album’s production company (s) and distributor(s)?

RECAP

What do the following terms mean in relation to the music industry?

• Production

• Subsidiary

• Parent Company

• Distribution

• Marketing

• Exhibition

• Horizontal Integration

• Vertical Integration