Music Videos and why they went away

Yep, I look to Youtube for videos now. Although in all honesty when MTV kind of stopped airing videos, I sort of adapted unfortunately. I agree with your statement that the videos complimented the song.

Even at the height of MTV's influence over music in the 1980s, their overall ratings were not that big. They did get a very desirable demo -- females between 14-24 (young people have lots of disposable income, and women are seen as more likely consumers).

It was only with the success of Real World and the advent of reality TV that MTV started getting big overall numbers, while keeping the same attractive-to-advertisers demo.

Some things must be accepted, like death and taxes. Reality TV is a regrettable but inevitable perfect storm -- it's very cheap to produce, and gets the desired female demo. It's the female sports.

Butt-Head predicted this years ago

But I don't think music videos will disappear. They're a great entertainment medium. And there is always the chance of a video going viral. Would a song alone ever get passed around the internet as fast as "Dick in the box" did? Absolutely not.

that is the most stereotypical black video I have ever seen in my life.

Every time I see that video I laugh at how ridiculous.

Not sure if you are joking or not, but Nelly is still pretty fun to listen too.

Man, Night Flight was awesome. It's how I saw Reefer Madness, old propaganda films, clips of cheezy b-movies, and music videos of obscure bands. What a great damn show.

Vidoes moved to youtube and a lot of bands still make creative videos. But on top of the reality show explanation, which is true, the bottom fell out of the music industry. We no longer have one shared top 40 -- the popular music today isn't very popular compared to previous eras. MTV demanded free product from the music industry, and the music industry is sick of giving away free product.

It's a question of economics. How does a music video increase an artist's income? They were an intersting form of art, but if they are not economically viable they will not be created.

quote:

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Why do bands continue to make music videos when there isn't a major TV network broadcasting them? Are bands really getting enough exposure on YouTube, onDemand, and other web sites to justify the cost of making a video?

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I think so. Next time you're watching a video on youtube, pay attention to the number of views. A popular song will have an obscene number of hits. Several million.

All of those youtube clips have links to itunes or amazon. I'm guessing they get clicked enough times to justify the cost of making the video, and in a lot of cases a lot more than that.