What impact does media ownership have upon the range of products available to audiences in the music industry?

What impact does media ownership have upon the range of products available to audiences in the music industry?

Media ownership is being increasingly concentrated into fewer and fewer firms, and thus most of the content that we have access to, while it may not seem like it at first, is being controlled by very few people. I think this is a problem and frankly stifles competition between new companies and limits the customer's choice. This isn't a good thing and makes the customer feel like they're trapped, however I will go into detail on this.

First of all, we have to look at what media ownership is. The term media ownership in itself is fairly self-explanatory, however when we look at the media owners in the industry, we can see that there is a problem. Over time, fewer and fewer companies are owning more and more media. As of 2015, Comcast Corporation is the largest media conglomerate in the US, with The Walt Disney Company, News Corp and Time Warner ranking second, third and fourth respectively. However, this is for all of media and we have to look at the music industry specifically. When we look in detail at the music industry, we see quite a sad sight. From the Neilsen SoundScan report in 2012, "the big four" record label companies control almost 90% of the market. To be specific, Universal Music Group (who own EMI Music) control 32.41% + 6.78% of EMI Group, Sony Music Entertainment (who own publishing arm of EMI Group) control 30.25%, and Warner Music Group control 19.15%. This leaves only 11.42% of the market to independent musicians and labels. Most people in this group are left to fight over the little space in a completely over-saturated market. Platforms like Bandcamp and SoundCloud are flooded every day with new wannabe musicians and songwriters and there is only so much space for advertisement on their websites. Unless you can pay your way onto the front page of SoundCloud by continuously paying to promote your own music, all you have is pot luck that people stumble onto your music and share it. There are so many people fighting for one space that people often get buried and give up. Unfortunately, the way to get into the music industry these days is to get lucky. All it needs is one person to pick up on you and they share it and suddenly you branch out and become a fairly well-known name. There is very little in the way of clever marketing and advertising trickery to get yourself recognised.

The concentration of media ownership now has meant that there is very little variation in music now-a-days. Of course, there are exceptions, however these are few and far between. It is not very often that we hear someone who started off in their bedroom recording music and putting it on SoundCloud or Bandcamp who has risen to fame and stardom. More often we hear of people who got to the final of X-Factor, or those who were already culminating a decent following deciding to try out songwriting. These people often get signed directly onto one of the aforementioned "big four" record labels and get a free pass into the spotlight. It can be hard to recognise that a lot of people put blood, sweat and tears into trying to "make it", when all we hear of are celebrity success stories who got lucky and could simply waltz into whatever industry took their fancy. Most of the music produced by these record labels are simply made to be listened to by the majority of the public and they simply grind out top 40 songs. Often people at the bottom of the food chain scramble for any opportunity for publicity, whether it be a tiny gig in a garage somewhere or a post on a small indie Facebook page. The big four record labels all have a common business model. It is predicated on scale. They invest in music and develop talent, of course, but the end goal is to shift as many units to as many people as possible. For example, the value of Universal Music Group, the biggest label in the big four, has trebled in the past 4 years to give them an approximate net worth of €20bn ($22bn, £17bn) according to the annual shareholders' meeting in Paris on 25th April, 2017.

There is definitely an increase in the amount of indie music in the industry and it is most certainly a growing force, gaining more and more influence. Indie labels and musicians are getting recognised more often and are having more of a voice in the industry, however it isn't enough. While a tenth of the music industry is still a considerable amount in terms of monetary value, when we think about how many people would fall under the indie category it most certainly doesn't amount to much when we split it out between each and every artist in the category. In the US alone there are about 70k musicians tracked by BLS and another 700k from census data. If we think about the world as a whole there are bound to be several million aspiring songwriters and composers. It is so easy now a days to make music, whether it's sitting in your room recording it on your phone, using a DAW like GarageBand which comes free on Macs and iDevices or even torrenting one like FL Studio or Cubase considering how easy it is to do. Because of the accessibility of music production it has encouraged more and more people to try it out and they have found that it's something they like. They make more and more music and it just adds to the pile of great talent that may never even be seen.

There is still a massive amount of content for anyone of any taste out there somewhere. The chances are, if you can think of a genre, it exists somewhere. In a sense, media ownership hasn't really affected anyone as, if you are willing to dig deep enough, the music you are looking for will be there. However, it is the lack of this content that is given a chance in the spotlight. The convergence of media ownership has meant that there is more content easily available to the consumer but all the content has become too similar. There is still a vast range of content available but most of it is hidden under the layer that the big four labels put up, trying to drag you in to consume their content instead of the content that is most likely more what you're looking for that is being produced and made by indie artists.

Monarch of the Glen Analysis

Discuss the ways in which the extract constructs the representation of AGE using the following: 

• camera shots, angle, movement and composition

• editing
• sound
• mise-en-scène. 

At the extract’s opening, we see several characters on screen at once with a wide establishing shot, then the camera follows two men walking down a path. All of the characters are men, packing up tools. We can see that all of these characters are clearly older men from the gray hair, as well as the fact their clothing seems to be more for practicality than fashion. After this, the camera cuts to a wide shot of a girl running out of a house where another young boy is standing. The camera pans round to follow the girl’s movement and it shifts to an over the shoulder shot. The camera is forced to angle down slightly. We can take from this that the girl is younger than the boy due to the lower position of the girl in the framing. The girl also is wearing a bright, floral, yellow top with blue jeans, perhaps the most fashionable person on the farm. One could argue that her style indicates her age as she seems to be the only one that puts real effort into their clothing choices thus far. The two exchange a short dialogue, where the boy is identified as Ewan, when they are cut short by another man, who tells Ewan to help him and tells the girl, who we now know is Amy, to drive into town to pick up some things. We can see from the way that the man issues orders that he must be older than both Ewan and Amy. He is also placed much higher up in the framing, often depicted as looking down on other characters, mirroring his age and his authority.

We then get a shot of Amy sitting in the car, trying to remember how to start it. We get a sense that she lied to the man about being able to drive. She manages to start the car and then we get a shot of Ewan watching her to make sure that she sets off safely. From this, we feel an air of suspense as it seems from the look on Ewan’s face that he doesn’t believe that Amy can drive. We get a wide shot of the car as it leaves the premises. We then cut back to a close shot of Ewan going back to work, then shortly after we hear the screeching of tires and a large bang off in the distance. Ewan, the man and another character rush off to see what happened. We then get a wide establishing shot of two cars, one is the car Amy drove off in, and the other is a different car. Amy gets out and runs round to the front of the car to inspect the damage, and a man comes out of the other car and comes to the front of his car. The man recognises the girl just as Ewan and the others catch up to the scene. After a short exchange of dialogue, we discover that the man in the other car is Amy’s headmaster. The headmaster is looked up to through the camera. The camera is lower down and is tilted up to the character to represent his authority and age by forcing the viewer to look up to him. The headmaster identifies the man as Paul. The headmaster talks in a rather refined, posh accent, whereas Paul talks with a typical London-English accent, which we can assume means he is older than Paul.

Amy is the youngest character and is standing with 3 other older characters, and is again placed in the lower third. It is revealed that she is only 16 and should still be in school. She ran away to escape. The headmaster and Paul then go inside to discuss the matters in private. After the headmaster tells us that Amy is yet to sit her exams, Paul rushes out and swiftly takes Amy aside. During the next part of the scene, Amy is scolded and that she is to go back to school. Age is indicated once more by the camera angles as over the shoulder shots are used and the camera has to tilt up over Amy’s shoulder to mimic her looking up to him, and the camera has to tilt down to see Amy from Paul’s shoulder. The tone that Amy uses in her voice is quite childlike and guilty as she continually tries to apologies to Paul for misleading him, which shows how young she is. Amy then storms off to her room to pack her things.

After this, we cut to an extreme long shot of the surrounding scenery to indicate we have moved outside. We then get a series of various medium and wide shots of some people constructing what appears to be a small house. There is rather cheerful, western style music. The old style of the music is perhaps being used to reflect the ages of the people working outside. We then get a medium shot of Amy’s room, and it pans round to show off the whole space. Age is again indicated through the mise-en-scene of her room. The room is decorated with pink and teddy bears, and pictures of who we assume are her and her friends and family surrounding a mirror. The use of these photos and the juvenile colours and objects help reflect Amy’s age. The music has changed to a slow, sombre melody. We then cut to a medium shot through the window of Amy’s room as a woman enters. The camera starts below the window frame and moves up to reveal an empty room, and Amy has ran away. I feel this is a good indicator of Amy’s age, she seems threatened by the thought of going back to school for her exams and chooses to abandon everyone and make her own way. This teenage arrogance reflects her age well and portrays to the viewer that perhaps Amy thinks she is more mature than she actually is.

We cut back to a wide shot of outside where some men are doing more constructive work. Paul’s work is then interrupted when the woman from Amy’s room then runs up to him, tired and out of breath, to inform him that Amy has ran away. The smile on his face changes to concern as the shot fades to black to finish the extract. We can tell from the way the woman is so tired when she finally catches up to Paul that she must be older. She barely is able to catch her breath to string her sentence together when she arrives, however earlier on in the film we see 3 other characters who run out to the scene of the accident and seem fine.