Convergence of Technology -

Convergence of Industrial Activity -

Synergy - The combination of two separate media texts or products that share similar characteristics so that one helps market the other.

Conglomerate - is a company that owns large numbers of companies in various mass media such as television, radio, publishing, movies, and the Internet.

Globalisation - the shift in media distribution

Analogue Music -

Digitalisation -  conversion of analog information into digital information.

Vertical Integration -  When a company expands its business into areas that are at different points of the same production path.

Horizontal Integration -  When a company expands its business into different products that are similar to current lines. (A hot dog vendor expanding into selling hamburgers would be an an example of horizontal integration.)

Major record label - A record label specializes in manufacturing, distributing and promoting audio and video recordings, on various formats.

subsidiary label -

Independent label -  is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels

niche audience - a small, select group of people that have a very unique interest.

mainstream audience

fans - people who have a particular interest for music

active audiences

Audiophiles - This is a person who is interested in high sound quality.

early adopters - A person who starts using a product or technology as soon as it becomes available.

consumption - The using up of a resource.

Web 2.0 - the second phase of the internet, where the focus shifts from people receiving information and services to people creating and sharing material.


Meta-tags/personalisation - is a special HTML tag that is used to store information about a web page


download - the practice and receiving digital information from an online source on a computer, as opposed to sending it by upload.


streaming - is when a multimedia file can be played back without being completely downloaded first.


peer to peer - The sharing of media material between two parties in an equal relationship.


piracy - distribution of media material that infringes copyright law.


portability/ miniaturisation


multi-track - a method of sound recording


sampling - is a digital representation of an analog signal.


digital audio workstation - is a computer that is specially equipped with a high-quality sound card and programming for editing and processing digital audio at a professional level.


A&R –  is the division of a record label that is responsible for overseeing the artistic development of recording artists.


Record Deal – a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist 

 Distribution - the action of sharing music out among a number of people.


Plugging/marketing - set of institutions, and processes for creating

The Big 3

EMI were bought out buy Universal. Making The Big 4, The Big 3, which now consist of Sony (BMG) (21.5%), Warner Brothers (11.3%) and Universal (39%). Independant labels make up the rest.

Sony (BMG)
A global record group founded on March 3rd 2004.
Sony (BMG) was a joint 50/50 company between Sony music entertainment and Berteismann music group (BMG.
It owned and distributed record labels such as Epic Records, Columbia records and RCA.
On August 5th 2008 Sony Corp agreed to buy Berteismann 50 percent stake for $1.2 billion to get full control. The music company was renamed Sony Music Entertainment Inc.

Sony's labels include: RCA label group.
Sony CGM
Columbia
Syco

Some current artists include:
Justin Timberlake
Foo Fighters
Kings Of Leon
Bruce Springsteen
Glasvegas
The View
The Script

Warner Brothers
WMG is a global leader in national and international repertoir and home to some of the best known labels in the music industry.
In addition to its Us labels, WMG operates in numerous affiliates and licenses in more than 50 countries.
Their recorded music business includes growing artist service business which offers artist management, merchandising, touring, fan clubs, ticketing sponsherships and brand endorsements and numerous third party solutions that facilitate the sale of music-based content directly to the consumers.
Warner/Chappell music is one of the world's leading music publishers with a catalogue of more than one million songs from more than 65,000 songwriters.
In recent years they've grown to become the world's third largest recorded music business and third largest music publishing business, one of the music industry's most successful companies.

What To Research

1. Production: The recording of the music. Where and how.
2. Distribution: How the music is produced. How does it get into shops, played on the radio and made available for payable downloads.
3. Consumption: How do people consume the music made available? Buying CDs, downloading music, buying tickets for concerts, buying merchandise?

Case Study

This is the case study of two record companies that targets a British audience. One will be a major label, and one will be an independant label. Case study should look at the production, consumption, distribution and marketing and exchange. Domestic expenditure on music in all forms totals almost £5 billion a year and music activities generate the equivalent of 126,000 full time jobs in the UK.

The UK is the third largest market in the world for sales of music behind only the USA and Japan. Sales in the UK amounted to 10.4% of all music sold globally in 2004. As a source of repertoirs, the UK is second only to the USA.

Britain is a nation of music lovers and we buy more music than any other country - 3.2 CDs per person per  year.

The way audiences listen to music has changed due to digitilisation.
The way we buy music, share music and listen to music has changed due to digitilisation.

More than 31,000 new album titles (including re-issues) were released in the UK last year, second only to the US - which demonstrates the commitment to investment from UK record companies.

Uk record companies invest 17% of turnover in A and R. DTI data shows that other industries with traditions of heavy R and D expenditure such as pharmaceuticals actually soen a smaller proprtion of revenues on developing new products than the UK record industry invests in the development of new artists.

British artistsaccounted for 49.9% of artist's albums sold in the UK in 2005 - the highest annual since 1998. This represented sales of 62m units - the highest ever total in a single year by British musicians.

To develop a case study on two particular record labels.

This institution must be located in the contempory music industry.

This institution must produce and/or distribute music in the UK.

When researching your chosen record labels you must focus on 3 key areas: Production, Distribution, Consumption and Exchange.