Sales and streaming bumps after the Super Bowl and Grammys show that screen time still matters in a business that’s been changing at lightning speed.
This week’s article I chose to write about really strikes a chord, because the main concept our professor has been emphasizing throughout this entire course is the understanding power of attention. The person or company that can gather the most attention and keep it, wins. When applying this ideology to the music business I learned that there are some very strong parallels between how an artists generates buzz about a tour or album, and the way top media companies remain relevant. Surely, the music business has it own formula of generating revenue through various streaming services like YouTube and Spotify, but the article reveals how TV still plays a major part in the success of an artist.
When were talking about attention and gathering more eyeballs, as a company or as a artist, what better time to try to get them then when there’s millions of people watching a screen all at once. Despite huge changes in technology, and an influx of this On-Demand lifestyle, some of the largest live televised events are still The Grammy’s and The Super Bowl. The Grammy’s had over 26 million eyeballs glued to the screen watching Adele and Beyonce battle it out. Lady Gaga’s half-time performance garnished a whooping 117.5 million viewers! What does this tell us? People are still watching TV for major live events, and the music business surely has taken advantage of this realization.
The music industry can be dramatically influenced by these moments of attention influx. The article explains that just about every performer at The Grammy’s saw a bump in their downloads, and streams. But the person that benefited the most from both of these major live events was Lady Gaga. The article claims that her album was stagnant since last year, with singles failing short of even the top 30 songs. But after her performances her even her modest seller ‘Joanne’ jumped to No. 2 on the charts from No. 66! And it gets even better the song ‘A Millon Reasons’ that charted nowhere, leaped to No. 4! This just goes to say that TV still has some room in altering the order of the music in industry. The more attention an artist gets, the more downloads, and streams they get. There major live events are extremely helpful for artists who may not have it within their budget to promote their new music, tour, or album releases on a mass scale.
