The Different Functions of a Music Video

What is the job of a music video?

A music video is a video that has been created to integrate with a song that has been made by an artist or group of artists. The main roles of a music video are to promote an artist or group of artists, and to make money for said artists. Some of the lesser roles of music videos are to create a fan base or to strengthen a connection with existing fans  throughout a big fan base, for example One Direction:

They are also very helpful in creating an image for an artist and strengthening a pre-existing image, for example Adele, the artist is very well known for her sad songs and her dark music videos support this theme:

MTV and Online Sales:

 In recent years with the rise of music TV channels like MTV and video sharing websites like YouTube, music videos have become a lot easier to distribute as it is much easier for people to access them. The launch of YouTube in 2005 allowed people to put their own videos on the internet for everyone to see; some artists saw some massive success
with their own use of YouTube. The band 'OK Go' uploaded one of the first viral music videos to YouTube called 'A Million Ways' in 2005 and it reached 4 million views rapidly, the same happened with another song that they
released in 2006 called 'Here It Goes Again' which sky rocketed to 36 million views.

MTV was created in 1981 as part of the Viacom subsidiary - originally an initialism for Music Television - and grew to fame as big artists were able to show off their music and their music videos to anyone that had a TV. It grew in rapid viewership mainly because it was the only way viewers could watch music videos of their favourite artists as the internet had not been created at this point. MTV was mainly for the biggest and most popular artists around at the time as the funding needed was huge - Michael Jacksons 'Thriller' cost $1 million to create. The first music video shown was 'Video Killed the Radio Star' by The Buggles - a massively popular English trio. Their song reached number 1 in 16 different countries including England and America.

Viewership of MTV has died down in recent years as artists prefer to upload their music videos on the internet as it is free and more effective in reaching a wider audience - the artists actually gain money from YouTube through an AdSense scheme. Bruno Mars' 'That’s What I Like' reached the number one spot, surpassing his own album sales in which the song features. The song has reached a total of 557 million views on YouTube as of June 2017 highlighting the effectiveness of online viewing and distribution.

Impact of new technologies over the past 10 Years:

Over the past 10 years, the creation of new technologies has had a great impact on the music video industry. It has allowed for a more time and cost effective means of production as well as a better looking video. This has mainly come as a result of cheaper equipment that is better in doing its job than old equipment. For example, shooting cameras have become much cheaper and much more effective in shooting videos as they create a better quality video that people can see. Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' cost just over $1 million to create whereas music videos can cost anywhere in the range of $20,000 to $500,000 at maximum depending on the desired quality.

The creation of new technologies has also allowed the invention of the internet which was slowly followed by video sharing sites like Google Video, Yahoo! Video, Facebook, Myspace and most notoriously YouTube. Sites like these are effective as they do not cost any money to upload onto and they allow for production companies to target their chosen market based on their browser history and AdSense tracking which saves them money. Alternatively, producers can use AdSense in order to advertise their music video before a viewer can watch the video they were originally planning on watching. This creates a cheaper means of advertising as opposed to advertising on TV as it is more effective in reaching a wider audience whilst costing less money.