What do real audiences consume?

Festivals, Concerts and Gigs

Audiences are able to consume the music they love through going to the gig/ tour of the artist where they can listen to the latest songs from the artist and can buy merchandise such as T-Shirts that associate with them. This can generate huge profits for the artist as they can play at venues in capital/major cities around the world, which are densely populated and have large music venues for example in London large music venues such as the O2 can hold up to 20,000 people.

Festivals enable audiences to consume music they love from big mainstream artists. However festivals also give audiences the opportunity to watch smaller, lesser known artist on stages all around the festival area. This enables artist who do not have large record labels that can't distribute their material to perform in front of thousands of people and have it broadcasted on the radio and TV. For example Glastonbury has the John Peel stage that has small performances to show upcoming artists.

TV

Television has developed rapidly in the last 50 years with music channels being established alongside. The biggest music channel is MTV which has many channels for different genres for example MTV Rocks and MTV Dance. By having these audiences are able to listen to artists from their favourite genre, plus they can look at other genres and explore new artists. These channels can attract large viewing figures and can act as advertisement for the artists.

Radio

Radio has played a major impact in the music world for a very long time since the creation of BBC Radio 1. Radio stations have since expanded to all types of genres and eras of music. BBC Radio 1, Capital FM and Kiss FM promote the latest and upcoming artists (Usually to the point where we hate the song.). With today’s technology Radio is very easy to access through car radios, internet, phones, TV and even on airplanes. Through having this easy and free access artist can have new material broadcasted across the world and can go on these radio stations opt promote the new material.

Internet

The internet has probably had the biggest impact on music in the last 10 years , with artists all around the world able to post, tweet, e-mail, fax (If you still do that.) and upload songs, covers, albums and demos. Artists such as Justin Bieber have been catapulted into fame as their music has gone viral and been seen by millions. Through the internet being free and easy to access artist material and websites can be found fast and enables audiences to buy merchandise or music from the artists. By having social networks artist music can be shared across the world from audiences to their friends giving free advertising to the artist.

-Youtube

Artists such as Psy have found fame through YouTube. The free, online video sharing website has given artist like Psy worldwide fame as audiences can easily access videos from unknown artist. The videos have share buttons enabling people to broadcast to their friends of the songs they like, Psy bought his crazy genre to the UK and sparked a viral craze for the man, with his video achieving over 2 billion views.

-Spotify, Deezer and other stream sites.

Music stream sites such as Spotify and Deezer have been recognised as boosting the music industry, through giving the audiences the opportunity to listen to the latest songs, old songs and song from small artists. This gives the upcoming artist a platform to upload their music for millions to listen too. Streaming sites listen count is being added to the UK Official Charts demonstrating its importance and impacts its having on artists.

ITunes

ITunes is a music database by conglomerate technological giant Apple, that enable artists in music to sell their music which is opened to millions of people to buy. ITunes gives audiences the opportunity to download any music they want to their (Apple) IPhones, IPods, IPads, laptops and computers. Giving audiences the opportunity to listen to their music whenever and wherever they want. Having this database of music enables audiences to search for the artists they love and look into unknown artists that are part of the same genre.

Music Shops

Music is available all across the high street with music specialists HMV to supermarket chains such as ASDA and Morrisons all selling the latest and classics of music. This enables audiences to buy their favourite artists fast and in their local area. However with the internet taking over, stores such as HMV have gone into administration through downloading music becoming more popular. If HMV did close down completely then many people could only buy albums from supermarkets which only sell mainstream artists thus smaller artist will find it very difficult to sell their music.

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