The Music Industry

The concentration of media ownership, also known as media consolidation or media convergence, refers to a process where pregressively fewer individuals or organisations have control of the mass media market. Through this there are 'The Big Six' in the media world, these are General Electric, Walt Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, VIACOM and CBS each revenue between $157 billion and $13 billion a year. VIACOM (revenuing $13.5billion a year) owns MTV and music game developers Harmonix, this gives them quite a large say in the  music industry.

The music industry is one of the most competitive markets. It is a bigger industry and harder to break into than others, it is built up by compositions, performances and recordings. The music industry is ran by many different people such as artists, producers, managers, songwriters, studio engineers ect.

The music market has expanded over the last couple of years with the increasing use of downloads through iTunes, this gave people a different and easier way to access music. The music industry is also under threat from piracy as most people download their music illegally.

The main music producers in the music industry are now independent labels, however the company Universal Music Group have the biggest individual share.  Sony BMG, EMI and Warner Music Group are the other 3 main contributors to the music industry. This means although for our artist these would be ideal, it wouldn't be realistic for them to get signed by them immediately. A more suitable choice for our artist would possibly a label like Cherry Tree Records. Current artists include Ellie Goulding, Far East Movement and LMFAO.  The label also used to manage Lady Gaga and Noah and The Whale before they signed with one of the main labels. Also the company is based in the USA so would be more feasible for our artist than a british label.