Deadlines/Brief

Music videos are so 80s/90s, right? They belong with the era when MTV screened wall-to-wall vids instead of 'reality' TV? Try telling that to the millions who bought Gangnam Style; were they really simply loving the music? 1.6bn (and still climbing) have viewed the video on YT, not to mention the many re-makes (school eg, eg2), viral ads + celeb link-ups (even political protest in Seoul) - and it doesn't matter how legit it is, this nightmare for daydream Beliebers is making a lot of money, even from the parodies + dislikes. All this for a simple dance track that wouldn't have sounded out of place in 1990 ... but had a fun vid. This meme itself was soon displaced by the Harlem Shake. Music vids even cause diseases it seems!
This blog explores every aspect of this most postmodern of media formats, including other print-based promo tools used by the industry, its fast-changing nature, + how fans/audiences create/interact. Posts are primarily written with Media students/educators in mind. Please acknowledge the blog author if using any resources from this blog - Mr Dave Burrowes

Saturday 4 August 2012

INDUSTRY Universal-EMI Monopoly?

I've posted several times on this, and will add links to all below at some point, but here's a fresh angle on this story - which is ideal to help you show some knowledge and understanding of the economic operation of the music biz, as well as the impact of digitisation. The story features Universal, so should remind you of the concepts you came across when studying British cinema...

The proposed 'merger' of Universal and EMI (basically, the British giant EMI being swallowed up by the US giant Universal) has been very controversial and may now be blocked as US politicians in the Senate have argued this would endanger competition in digital media, and threaten to push up CD prices by reducing competition. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/aug/03/mediabusiness-emi.

I notice also that Universal have been providing the music used at the Olympics, a handy spot of global advertising there (their fellow Vivendi subsidiary NBC, the US TV network, are broadcasting the Games in the US): http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/04/olympic-stadium-music-locog.

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