Music Industry Lesson

Remember to complete the lessons you'll be missing this week due to DLD and school closure. The power point is available on Fronter : www.fronter.com/croydon.

EMI sells music unit to Universal for £1.2bn

Check out recent news about the UK music group EMI - home to the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Coldplay - selling its recorded music unit for £1.2bn to Universal Music.
 Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15697973

TV Drama: Exploration of Representations

How are Gender, Age and Ethnicity represented in the media, with specific reference to Television Drama?

To answer this question effectively you need to research the following for each area of representation:

• What type of individual characters might be stereotypical of this area?
• What type of groups of people might be stereotypical of this area?
• What type of events/plot lines may occur stereotypically when focused on this area?
• What type of places may sterotypically be be used for setting?
• How are the stereotypes of this area of representation subverted ie go against what youwould expect?
• How does the genre of the programme affect how these areas are represented?

Representation in the media

Read the following article to gain an understanding of how Gender is represented in the media. You should pay particular focus to the stereotypes mentioned:

Gender and Media Representation

You will also notice in links on the left hand side of the page to article related to the representation of Age and Race (Ethnicity). Please also explore these pages.

Your new best friend...

Who is Bob Lefsetz?

Bob Lefsetz is the author of "The Lefsetz Letter." Famous for being beholden to no one and speaking the truth, Lefsetz addresses the issues that are at the core of the music business: downloading, copy protection, pricing and the music itself.
His intense brilliance captivates readers from Steven Tyler to Rick Nielsen to Bryan Adams to Quincy Jones to EVERYBODY who’s in the music business.
Never boring, always entertaining, Bob’s insights are fueled by his stint as an entertainment business attorney, majordomo of Sanctuary Music’s American division and consultancies to major labels.

–Rhino

"The Lefsetz Letter" has been publishing for over 25 years. First as hard copy, most recently as an email newsletter and now, for the first time, in blog form.

Check his blog out now:
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/who-is-bob-lefsetz/

Links to The Lefsetz Letter on EMI: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2011/11/12/emi-2/

Task: Read some of the blogs posted and make sure you follow it from your own blog page.

Music Industry - Independent Study Support

Music Industry: Understanding, Gathering Evidence, Exploring Implications

 and Having an Opinion

Your homework and independent study work is as follows:

Download and save a digital copy of the Music Industry Spec. Evidence Builder from Fronter (www.fronter.com/croydon) You will be adding to this each week.

You need to complete the following two sections:

1. Issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice.
(Ideas - Discuss the different types of ownership - the advantages and disadvantages of these - how media ownership can assist artists and in what ways - evidence/examples: EMI research, Tinie Tempah,

2. Technologies that have been introduced in recent years.
(Ideas - What are the changes in technological changes and what impact have these had? Think about - Internet, Web 2.0, Itunes as well as technological convergence (think your mobile phone!) - What implications does this have on the music industry?

You can, if you wish, begin to complete the section labelled 'Audience consumption and the relationships between audiences and instutions'.

Once you have completed it you need to upload it to Fronter in your own individual file. To do this go to the class page and click 'hand in' on the left hand column. You need to then click on the folder called 'Spec. Evidence Builder' and click 'upload'.

The folder will close for hand ins on Wednesday 16th November at 17:00.

What the Citigroup takeover means for EMI...

Nobody expects Citigroup to hold on to EMI, but its fate will affect artists and songwriters on the major label's roster.

Read full story here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/feb/02/behind-music-citigroup-takeover-emi 

Food for Thought: What are the implications now that the UK has lost it its only major label? (Comment on your blog)

"Application developers are the the future of the music business"

'App Innovation' EMI and The Echo Nest team up for OpenEMI

 

LONDON, November 3, 2011 – The Echo Nest, a music intelligence platform powering smarter music apps across the web and devices, and EMI Music, one of the world’s leading music companies, have today announced a new initiative to put thousands of legendary songs and other music-related content such as video, photos and artwork in the hands of more than 10,000 application developers around the world. This collaboration represents the most extensive collection of licensed music and other assets to ever be made available in this way, and gives developers a one-stop destination to create innovative digital products for EMI’s artists.

“Application developers are the future of the music business — they are the creative architects reshaping the role music plays in our lives,” said Jim Lucchese, CEO of The Echo Nest. “We surveyed our community of 10,000 application developers to understand their biggest challenges in building commercial music applications.  Music licensing difficulties were the #1 problem developers faced, with assistance in marketing applications coming in at #2.  By taking on responsibilities around licensing and putting EMI’s marketing muscle behind these applications, OpenEMI is directly addressing these pain points and fostering a more collaborative environment between the established music industry and its future.” 

See the full article here: http://www.emimusic.com/news/2011/the-echo-nest-and-emi-music-team-for-%e2%80%98openemi%e2%80%99-and-app-innovation/

Can John Peelism survive the Internet?

6 Music launches The John Peel Lecture with Pete Townshend, the creative force, guitarist and chief songwriter of The Who, speaking live at this year's Radio Academy Radio Festival in Salford's Lowry Theatre.

Pete examines the current state of music media and asks the question: Can John Peelism survive the Internet? In an age of free downloads and a disposable attitude to music, can creative people earn a living, and without radio how can the "unpolished" music that John Peel championed find an audience?

Investigate and watch it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016k4d0