Music Channel Research - Luke

With the increase in the amount of music videos, record labels and artists are increasingly actively looking for new ways to showcase their material. Television has become a great output for these music videos, with many different channels showing purely music videos 24 hours a day. The huge variety in the genres of music that these channels specify in, there are endless opportunities for these artists to get their material shown. I now need to decide which, out of the many different music channels, my music video would be most suited to. Some of the main music channels that I will be analysing are MTV, Viva and Kerrang.

MTV

The original MTV channel now features a lot less on music videos and more on reality television programmes.

Some of the programmes that MTV have incorporated into their main channel include:

• Jersey Shore


• 16 and Pregnant


• Made


• Fresh Prince of Bel Air

All are used to help the brand gain access to a wider audience, reeling in people that are not interested in watching only music videos on the channel 24/7.

There are however many different music channels under the MTV brand, including MTV Music, MTV Base, MTV Hits, MTV Dance, MTV Rocks and MTV Classic. These six channels run by MTV therefore diversify the variety of genres of music available for people to watch, again, helping them gain a wider audience, and also offers me many options within the original 'MTV' branded music channels for my music video to be showcased on.

Viva

Viva is a music video and entertainment channel that replaced 'The Music Factory' in 2009. The channel is owned by Viacom International Media Networks Europe and was originally a German entertainment channel. Viva also became the first entertainment channel from MTV to be featured on freeview, helping the brand to accomodate viewers who may not have access to a subscription based television network such as Sky or Virgin Media.

Similarly to all other MTV channels, Viva shows reality and entertainment television programmes alongside music videos and chart shows. When it comes to the music videos the channel shows, you are more likely to see top 40 music or music from the pop genre, meaning that the song I am creating a music video may not fit so well with the rest being shown.

Kerrang

Kerrang! TV is a music channel that features only music videos from artists that fit into the hard rock/punk/heavy metal genres of music. The channel is owned by Box Television and is loosely related to the well known magazine Kerrang!

Unlike most music channels, Kerrang is openly scheduled and only plays songs from its playlist that are requested by text by viewers. This is similar to channels such as Channel AKA and Starz TV which feature music from the underground grime/rap scene. Seeing as the song I have chosen to create my music video for doesn't really fit into the genres shown on Kerrang! TV, I feel that a channel like this would not be suited for showing my video on.

Overview

Based on these music channels that i have given a brief overview on I feel that the type of channel that would be most suited to showing my music video on would be one like MTV Dance, MTV Bass or another such as Dance Nation TV.