INDUSTRY Vevo the music video giant

Vevo is an entity you need to engage with to show a good grasp of the industry, a case of the music giants combining to monetise and control the distribution of their videos through YouTube.
See Lifewire, Wiki for simple explanations, and look into your own artist for Vevo links.

They're the major music industry force behind the Tory attempt to enforce age ratings on music videos, voluntarily engaging in the BBFC scheme. See this Guardian Music tag for more on this.

Big Three Sony Universal Warners

In film its the big six (7 if you count Lionsgate); in the music industry, following a controversial 2012 $2bn takeover of EMI by Universal, its just the big three: Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group. Sony and Universal also combine on the VEVO platform.

See: thebalance.com feature on the big 3; musicbusinessworldwide.com (the spin on this one is a bit odd - that the ENTIRE Indie industry beats any one of the big three individually); digitalmusicnews.com; this pdf.

Table from digitalmusicnews.

You can see how the industry has gone through dramatic 'disruption' from digitisation - but with little impact on the market share of the dominant conglomerates:

Source: p.11 of this report (pdf).

INDUSTRY Universal owner buys DailyMotion - isVEVO dead?

http://www.baeblemusic.com/musicblog/7-1-2015/the-death-of-vevo.html

VEVO vertically integrates with TV channels

VEVO, as a coalition of 2 of the 3 remaining global giants, Universal and Sony, already had a production arm; YouTube acted as the main distributor/exhibitor for its wares (music videos) until now, arguably being of greater importance than MTV and suchlike. Now they've launched their own channels, so are able to boast in-house production, distribution and exhibition.
There's more in the article below, including the assertions that "Part of what we're trying to achieve is that element of nostalgia but 70% of our audience is under 34."
YouTube has now bought a 10% stake in VEVO.

Article source.

Vevo launches 24-hour digital music channel in US and Canada

Video website hopes to recreate MTV's 1980s heyday with service for internet-connected TVs, tablets and mobiles

• Josh Halliday
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 March 2013

Rihanna: likely to feature on Vevo TV. Photograph: Stuart Wilson/Getty Images

Thirty-one years after MTV flickered into life to the sound of the Buggles hit Video Killed the Radio Star, the video website Vevo has launched a 24-hour digital music channel in the US and Canada.
Vevo, the site created by record giants Universal Music and Sony, hopes to recreate MTV's 1980s heyday with the channel, showing a selection of music videos, live concerts and original programming.

TOWID (The Only Way Is Digital)

2013 is clearly set to see digitisation continue apace, with analogue media being displaced by digital media which are typically cheaper to produce and distribute. That doesn't mean that analogue media, such as films shot on 35mm and distributed as 35mm prints to cinemas (each print costing £000s), will disappear, but that bit by bit the industry is moving over to digital content.
Here's some useful stats from this article, about Google buying a 10%, $50m stake in the video distributor Vevo (the joint Sony/Universal venture that you'll have come across if you've watched a few videos on YouTube, given how much of the music industry their artist sales represent):

Earlier this month the Entertainment Retailers Association reported that downloads of music, TV shows, films and video games topped £1bn in the UK for the first time in 2012. Digital music sales grew but revenue from physical singles fell by 44% year on year and albums dropped 11%.

The cinema industry and CD sales remain strong but, like newspapers, which are also seeing circulation declining rapidly as more people access their news online, may not have a bright future. The record set by Skyfall, 2012's Bond movie, may never be beaten: it became the first movie to take in over £100m at the UK box office by the last week in December 2012 (it was already the biggest ever UK cinema hit, and topped $1bn worldwide).

Music vid, web and film collide: David Lynch directs Duran Duran webcast

Source: http://pitchfork.com/news/41876-david-lynch-to-direct-duran-duran-webcast/

Obviously, this is a perfect illustration of the process of CONVERGENCE...

Monday, March 14

David Lynch to Direct Duran Duran Webcast

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"American Express Unstaged" is a live music webcast series that teams up big-name bands with big-name movie directors. Last year, they got Terry Gilliam to direct a webcast of an Arcade Fire show, and Spike Lee to direct a live stream of a Roots/John Legend show. And now the series has its most out-there artist/director pairing yet: On March 23, Duran Duran will play at L.A.'s Mayan Theatre. And David Lynch will direct the webcast.

Duran Duran's new album All You Need Is Now drops March 22, via S-Curve. The next night, the band's live show at the Mayan starts at 10 eastern time, and you'll be able to watch it at Duran Duran's Vevo page.
In a press release, Lynch says, "I am very excited about this opportunity to experiment with the band, Duran Duran, at the Mayan Theater on March 23rd. The idea is to try and create on the fly, layers of images permeating Duran Duran on the stage. A world of experimentation and hopefully some happy accidents." If you see Simon Le Bon holding a frozen smile for just a few seconds too long, you should probably blame this guy.
Below, watch a suitably ominous trailer for the show, and check out Duran Duran's forthcoming tour dates.