My Consumption of Music Videos

Music videos are a major marketing tool for bands. Television programmes such as Top of the Pops and dedicated channels like MTV used to be the key ways of viewing music videos. At the height of their popularity, in 1981 MTV launched their 24 hour channel of back to back music videos. There was a decline in popularity of music videos as they got left behind in an ever developing world of technology.

But the internet helped bring new life to music videos. Websites such as Youtube help give bands a huge platform in which to get noticed. This helps bands and artists at the top end of record sales such as Justin Beiber who's video for "Baby" recieved over 4 billion views and Lady Gaga's Bad Romance which recieved over 3 billion, but it also a huge opportunity for small independant bands to get seen. And most importantly for them, it's FREE.

With music videos becoming popular once again, there are much more music video dedicated channels appearing, Sky for example now has over 20 music video channels.

Most of my viewing of music videos comes through watching them on the internet. This is largely due to the fact that I can control what I'm watching without having to pay like I would to watch it on a televesion channel. This is particularly important for me because a lot of the bands I like don't get enough airplay (if any), and they are either too old or too small. The inclusion of Youtube's "Related Videos" sidebar has been great for introducing me to new bands.

In general when I watch music videos on televsion it is due to being bored, or wanting to avoid adverts (which in itself is ironic because music videos are adverts for the bands themselves ...but anyway). I generally flick through the whole list until a song or video catches my eye. Again this shows how all the bands and channels are in competition with each other for views. The main channels that I end up watching are Scuzz, Kerrang! and MTV2 and even then I do not watch the channels for a long time due to certain channels like Kerrang! being obsessed with certain bands like Green Day.

Basically if you don't like the mainstream music, watching music videos on television is not really an option.

Music video DVDs are a great way to control what you watch again. Though I don't watch many of them, I do own both Depeche Mode's: The Videos 1986 - 1998, and Guns 'n' Roses' Welcome To The Videos. To help give me a better idea of people in general's preferred choice for consumption of music videos I have conducted a small survey: