Music Channel Analysis

Objective: to be able to show an understanding of how music channels appeal to an audience

Starter:

Make a list of all the music channels that you know

MTV Hits 

MTV Base 

Kiss 

Heat 

4Music

The Box 

Scuzz 

Kerrang! 

VH1 

Channel AKA

VIVA 

Magic 

Tasks:

For each music channel answer the following questions:

MTV MUSIC TELEVISION

The target audience for MTV is youth - young people from around the age of 15-21 and it plays quite a lot of chart music by mainstream artists such as Beyonce, Example, StooShe, Katy Perry and Rizzle Kicks. These people are all commercial artists and therefore will appeal to an audience that is interested in music that's current and relevant to the time. MTV is used as a form of branding because they have many channels such as MTV Base which are suited for different audiences, for example MTV Base is suited for R&B artists. Also, they host annual award ceremonies for mainstream artists such as the VMA's and give out awards to celebrate music. For instance in 2010 Taylor Swift won 'Best Country Pop' and in the same year Beyonce won 'Music Video of the Year' award. Fans can then go on to the MTV website and vote for who they think deserves the award which therefore draws the event more publicity. The logo for MTV appeals to the target audience as the text is bubble writing and graffitied style which is more trendy and current, reflecting the tastes of the audience that tune into the MTV channel. 

VH1

The target audience for VH1 are older people from around the ages of 25-44 years of age. They usually play quite dated music that was popular back in the 80's and 90's which means it'd appeal more to people who were around when those songs were current, of course we always have to bare in mind exceptions knowing there will possibly be younger people who take an interest in VH1's music. Artists that regularly occur on these channels are artists such as Michael Jackson, The Rolling Stones and Madonna - all big musicals legends in their time. What would need to be considered is maybe eventually, the stars that feature on MTV today may eventually end up on a channel such as VH1 since MTV is a network that likes to keep up with what's current and will be happy to replace one used-to-be artist with the next big thing to keep their target audience of up to date music lovers in with the times. While I'm not aware of any other branding strategies that VH1 has, I did read an article about the channel wanting to redefine itself by broadcasting on a new network called 'adultster'. This suggests a lot about how VH1 are very specific when they say they're targeting younger people rather than younger people. Saying this, VH1's target audience can relate and feel drawn in by the bright fuschia and orange which have close connotations with the fashion in the mid-eighties of 'flower power'. 

THE BOX 

The Box has a much broader target audience than both MTV and VH1. While the two of them target specific audiences with specific music (either by date or by genre), The Box targets audiences of around the age of 13-25 who not only have an interest in music but also in the artists themselves as the channel is regularly known for having various artists usually from somewhere in the Pop genre hosting segments of what they broadcast. For example, sometimes they'll get the likes of Rita Ora or boy band One Direction to host a chart show where viewers can see parts of their personality as well as hear their opinions on particular songs or events (i.e. festivals/award ceremonies).  The Box also consists a lot of different chart countdowns rather than just playing random sequences of music videos split up by advert breaks. The Box is part of a form of branding as it also has a lot of partner music channels which are clearly owned by the same parent company, these music channels are: Magic, Kerrang, Kiss, 4Music, Smash Hits and Heat - this helps the parent company of The Box hit many target audiences in various markets. The Box logo appeals to its target audience as it varies a lot in comparison to a lot of other videos, the cut outs of basic shapes in the black boxes create a bubble effect while the 'O' resembles a television, connoting how the Box has a lot more to watch than just your average music video. 

SCUZZ 

Like VH1 and partly MTV, Scuzz has a more specific audience of younger rock audience who're particularly into heavy metal, hard rock, punk, deathcore and death metal. I'd say its audience ranges from around the ages 18-25. Artists that are regularly played on this channel are Blur, Evernesance, Slipknot, Oasis and Green Day. While all these artists are different types of the Rock genre, I think Scuzz have purposely done this to appeal to a lot of sub-cultures related to Rock to expand the target audience. As far as branding go Scuzz is owned by CSC Media Group and has sister companies such as Tiny Pop, Chart Show TV and Bliss which all differ in genre greatly. Also the channel has been present at various Rock music festivals such as the Download festival, Sonisphere, Bloodstock and Slam Dunk to name a few. The logo is written in all capitals which makes it a lot more eye catching and noticeable while the texture of the text appears to be mirroring a metal like material - relating to the metal music played on the channel, consequently making it more appealing to Rock fans that may not have watched the channel yet as oppose to choosing to tune into something like Kiss or VH1. 

KISS 

Kiss appeals to mainstream Dance, R&B and Hip-Hop fans ranging from the age of 17 to about 30+. Artists that usually feature on this channel are Ne-Yo, J.Holiday, Calvin Harris and Misha B. These people are all mainstream and are likely to see them also feature on MTV but Kiss has chosen to pick specific genres for their channel making it more niche even though it's an overall commerical channel. Kiss makes itself a brand as they've made joint ventures with other companies in the past such as Channel Four Television Corporation and Baeur to take shares in owning channels such as Smash Hits and The Box - Kiss like VH1 also has its own digital radio station where they play similar music to that on the channel. 

        Why do you think MTV is broken down into different channels?

    MTV is broken down into different channels such as MTV Hits,  MTV 2, MTV Jams, VH1, VH1 Classics etc. is to cater to as many audiences as possible which boosts their views as an overall network. Different channels that cater to different fans of various music genres allows more convenience for their viewers. MTV even has niche channels, for example there's not as big of a demand for 'VH1 Classics' as there is for the music on 'MTV Hits' but it's one more market of music lovers that they can cater for. MTV also has sister sites such as Nickelodeon and Comedy Central which are unrelated to music, this is an example of horizontal interrogation. 

      Why do you think music channels are important when having a target audience?

         Music channels are important when having a target audience because if certain audiences are tuning into channels they expect to see a specific genre of music playing. For example, audiences tuning into MTV would expect to see mainstream, commercial artists such as Beyonce, Katy Perry, One Direction, The Wanted, Justin Bieber and Rihanna as oppose to maybe indie bands like Oasis and Kaiser Cheifs. If this was to happen, the music channels views would drop due to blend of genres too big which would mean that a song a fan would like would broadcast every five times than consecutively one after the other. This is why channels such as MTV has many sub-channels to cater for everybody and play a genre of music consistently appealing to each of their market segment of music fans.

  Why do you think there are a variety of music channels?

While a few main music channels dominate such as Kiss, Mtv and The Box, there are many sub-cultures within music fans who don't necessarily like the main channels listed above.  While it's fair to say MTV, The Box, etc. all have differences but whether they play R&B, Rock or Pop, they're all mainstream and some people aren't into mainstream music whatsoever, therefore there are channels that cater to the niche audiences who prefer music from independent labels. Therefore a variety of music channels is vital to not only to cater to genre preferences of music fans but also the distribution preferences. 

  

    What have you learnt from analyzing music channels and how will it help you with your own production?
I've learned that you'll find specific artists on certain music channels and there are a lot of versatility within the channels that you can access. In the music world it's important to cater for niches as much as it's important to look for the mass market. This has helped me because I can then look at the video my production is most likely meant to be steamed on and look for similarities between those videos to cater to the target audiences needs.