Institutions
There are many music institutions in the modern day world with emerging technologies meaning that music and music videos can easily make use of cross-media convergence allowing consumers to view music. Click the buttons below to be taken to the relevant institution.
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group is an international music institution based in America and is easily the largest company I have looked at. UMG was first founded in 1934 under the name 'Decca records USA' and has since grown to a $6.552 billion dollar company that employs over 6.9 thousand people.
UMG is owned by the media conglomerate Vivendi, which is based in france. As well as being a child company of Vivendi, UMG owns several media institutions such as Virgin EMI Records, Island Records UK and Abbey Road Studios. Because of the broad spectrum of media companies UMG owns it dominates a huge portion of the music industry and has signed many names such as:
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50 cent
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ABBA
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Ariana Grande
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Amy Whinehouse
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Bob Marley
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Eminem
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James Blunt
As seen above UMG cover a huge number of genres and so can appeal to a huge demographic of the population. As well as simply being a music production corperation, UMG also played a part in co-developing the popular music streaming service Vevo.
Sony Music
Sony Music Entertainment, also known as SME is an american based music corperate that is a subsidary of the Japanase conglomerate Sony. SME was first founded in 1929 under the name American Record Corperation, finally in 1987 Sony brought the company and renamed it to SME in 1991. SME is regarded as the second biggest music instituion below UMG with a $4.89 billion dollar revenue.
Sony recently formed a partnership with IODA (Independant Online Distribution Alliance) with the aim of gainign leverage of combined worldwide online retail distribution networks and complementary technologies to support independent labels. As well as this they also creatde the biggest deal in music record history, by signing a contract with the Micheal Jackson company for $450 million in 2010. SME has mandy artists signed such as:
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Adele
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Lady Gaga
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N Sync
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T-Pain
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Will Smith
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Scouting for Girls
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Miley Cyrus
Warner Music Group
Unlike my previous two institutions, Warner Music Group, also known as WMG is an American owned record company with bases all over the world. It holds the title of being the largest American music institution. it owns multiple international labels with its most well known labels including Waner Bros Records, Palaphone Records and Atlantic Records, all of which are known as its flagship labels.
The company itself employs over 3,500 people and has an esitmated revenue of $2.87 Billion. As mentioned before this makes it the smallest institution out of 'the big 3'. WMG has formed many parternships one of which being with another popular music instituion, MTV. The partnership allowed exclusive advertising rights to WMG in exchange for views of WMG content being counted as views for MTV. This led to MTV overtaking another popular music streaming service, Vevo as the top online music sharing network. WMG also signs a variety of artists such as:
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Madonna
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Wiz Khalifa
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Red Hot Chilli Peppers
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Led Zepplin
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Coldplay
Other Music Institutions
Spotify
Spotify is an online music streaming that has been in operation since 2006, based in Sweden is provides music from all of the institutions above and more. It operates as a paid and free service, with 75 millions users in June 2015, 20 million of which are paid. Spotify offers multi platform streaming with devices such as phones, tablets and even gaming consoles being able to stream music. Spotify earns revenue from selling advertisment placements, which are shown to free users as well as selling their premium subscription service for £9.99 a month.
Spotify states that it does not have a fixed rate for payout per playout, with artists receiving between $0.006 and $0.0084 per play. Despite this low amount, spotify was reported to be making more money for labels than any other music retailer in 2010, paying more than €45 million to artists in a year.
Vevo
Vevo is another online music insitution owned by a joint venture of UMG, Song Music Entertainment and Abu Dhabi Media. Vevo is a newer instituion than Spotify, being launched in 2009, however despite this it still has a net income of $760 million in 2013. The same month as its launch it became the most visited music site in the US. Vevo makes money from high-end advertisments as well as a retail shop which sells merchandise. Vevo have also branched out in to TV by launcing Vevo TV which is currently only available in North America and Germany.
Vevo have formed a partnership with YouTube to allow music content to be viewed on YouTube, with over 50 million unique views being attirbuted on youtube to Vevo. Vevo has formed partnerships with UMG and Sony, and while it has expressed intrest in a partnership with WMG, nothing has come into action as of yet.
My Research
Spotify
Spotify is an online music streaming that has been in operation since 2006, based in Sweden is provides music from all of the institutions above and more. It operates as a paid and free service, with 75 millions users in June 2015, 20 million of which are paid. Spotify offers multi platform streaming with devices such as phones, tablets and even gaming consoles being able to stream music. Spotify earns revenue from selling advertisment placements, which are shown to free users as well as selling their premium subscription service for £9.99 a month.
Spotify states that it does not have a fixed rate for payout per playout, with artists receiving between $0.006 and $0.0084 per play. Despite this low amount, spotify was reported to be making more money for labels than any other music retailer in 2010, paying more than €45 million to artists in a year.
Vevo
Vevo is another online music insitution owned by a joint venture of UMG, Song Music Entertainment and Abu Dhabi Media. Vevo is a newer instituion than Spotify, being launched in 2009, however despite this it still has a net income of $760 million in 2013. The same month as its launch it became the most visited music site in the US. Vevo makes money from high-end advertisments as well as a retail shop which sells merchandise. Vevo have also branched out in to TV by launcing Vevo TV which is currently only available in North America and Germany.
Vevo have formed a partnership with YouTube to allow music content to be viewed on YouTube, with over 50 million unique views being attirbuted on youtube to Vevo. Vevo has formed partnerships with UMG and Sony, and while it has expressed intrest in a partnership with WMG, nothing has come into action as of yet.
My research into institutions allowed me to gain valuable insight into the way that my media product would be distributed, advertised and consumed by the audience. By researching not only the relevant institutions but also streaming services like spotify I was able to assatain the most popular methods of distributing content as well as what demographics that content distribution chain appeals to most.
This was a a great help to us as it provided us with crucial details abouts the target audience and those most likely to see our content, which in turn allowed us to tailor our piece to appeal to them most.