A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos date back much further, they came into prominence in the 1980s, when MTV based their format around the medium. There never used to be a way of showing music video's, the first ever 'music video' was shown at the cinema. It was called a 'hard days night' which was essientially a film but intregrated all of the beatles song into it. The first ever music video shown on Tv was bohemian rhapsody. Now 37 years on they are everywhere.

Music Channels

MTV is an example of a music channel that is there to help artists promote their songs and albums. They do this by putting their own videos onto youtube and try sell themselves, maybe to be noticed by chance by a record label. They give exposure 24/7 so viewers can watch it at any time during the day, the music channels show songs day in day out, so at any time of the day a viewer could tune in and listen to their favourite artists or new songs that have just been realased.  The channels are funded by subscription and advertising. For example before a top 40 programme a client will put their advert in before this specific show , so the viewer watching this music vdieo will have to watch the advert.  Outcomes of this are he channel, artist and record companies will make money. The channel from advertisers that pay for their adverts to be shown during the add breaks , advertising on their channel. The artists and record companies will make money from all the sales of the Cd's and tickets which  allows artists to become better known in the industry, the more known they are the more sales they will make.

Youtube

Unknown artist can post their videos on YouTube and self promote themselves to viewers, not only through their videos they now can create their own personal profile where they can sell themselves also to people to create a relationship with viewers. Anyone can use YouTube and hit a mass audience, with millions of people using Youtube every day the artists can use it to hit a big audience and give themselves the best chance of being noticed and is easily accessible to everyone with a computer or Smartphone. They now have apps that allow people to go on youtube anywhere they go, which also adds to the chance of being noticed or gettin them much needed hits and views. Youtube also can be used for well known artist, so their fans can watch the videos online at the click of a mouse, it increases teh platform and audience that they can spread the music too.  

An outcome of this is that unknown artists could have a chance of being noticed, for example Justin bieber started out using Youtube to post his video's after around 20 video's he was found by fellow artist Usher and Record Producer L.A reid. He is now the biggest teen sensation in the world selling millions of records worldwide. Another outcome of this is that Youtube will make money from companies advertising at the beggining of well known artists videos and they have a small tab on the side where companies can advertise. Another outcome of  this is that the artists and companies can monitor how well they are doing via the hit/views tab, this allows you to see how many people have watched your video and also how many people have liked and disliked it also. Also viewers are able to comment on the video and the channel that the video is on can comment back, this gives communication between the viewers and artists.

DVD

The purpose of using DVD is mainly promotional, Can be used to put actual music videos on them and maybe give them away with a CD single, which is another demonstration of promotion,  by using a DVD also they can include live concerts or music videos on them to convince the audience to purchase the DVD. Normally a ploy to get the audience to get the audience to buy, by offerering them a free DVD which is simply irreressistable. The outcome The artist, companies and retailers can all make profit from the sale of these or the promotion of the CD.

Itunes

Another promotional aspect, all the money made from the downloads goes to the record company, artist and iTunes. It is available to anyone with a computer to download. All songs will from Artists will go onto the online Itunes library and are easily accesible for the owners of Itunes to buy these songs. Also full albums are put on Itunes for the buyers to purchase and instantly listen to without going out and having to buy the single or album. The money from this will partly go to the artist and some to itunes. The outcome of this is Allows you to purchase albums, songs and videos whenever you want. Also can monitor online sales by using iTunes in one go.

Social Networking 

It doesn’t cost anything to view or post the videos. Like YouTube it is a way of self-promoting. Just by simply uploading there video, they can show it to a wide audience and get theirselves out there. Fans can interact with the artist or record company, by commenting on the videos and giving them likes and dislikes.  The outcomes are they allow the artist to monitor the progress of their videos and songs by the hit count that will be shown under their video and tells them how well they’re doing. Also is money made through advertising, the more popular your videos, the more advertisers can charge.

Synergy

Synergy comes from the Greek word that means to work together. In media it is used to explain how different products can work together using the same concepts for example, film soundtrack and video game. For example in the film twilight, Paramore have incorporated the film into their video.

There are 3 types of artists, the first are those under a major record label which are usually owned by multinational corporations. Labels such as London, island polydor sign artistes they think will have mass appeal and therefore make lots of money. They will look to use music videos as part of a wider marketing strategy that includes things such as radio play, press reviews, TV appearances and an expensive website. Paramore being a example of this. We know this from the video, when they are in the big forest on the picture below, they would of had to corden of this section of a big forest and then transport all the camera's, equipment to the location. This tells us they would of spent alot of money on this.

The 2nd type is indie record labels which are smaller independent record labels such as domino, have much smaller budgets and the artists they sign generally have more niche appeal. This means the marketing strategy is different as they can’t rely on radio and TV for promotions. Music videos are sued although they will be much lower budget and accessed mainly through the internet, a prime example of these are the Artic monkeys. In the Fluorescent Adolescent video we can see this when he throws a blow up doll into the river which is meant to be a actualy person but they couldnt afford to hire somebody to do this, which shows us that it is a indie record label.

Finally is artists who self produce and are not signed to a record label tend not to have much of a budget for music videos. Their videos tend to homemade and posted online receiving  very few hits. Midnight beast are a example of this, they are only on youtube trying to promote themselves at the moment. We know that it is self produced because its just 3 guys sat in there front room with a standard camera filming them performing and then they would dub the music in after using simple software.