Music video channels

By Francesca Keown

Purpose of music channels

• The purpose of music channels is to play music videos from artists to their target audience. The music videos help the target audience to understand the artist and what they are like. Many music videos are also the main aspect that is associated with an artists song and without them the songs wouldn't be a huge success. The use of music channels helps the artist to promote their music to a wider audience. Different music channels have their own style and genre of music videos they play at a particular target audience. The music channels are either aired on TV or have a website on the internet e.g. YouTube.

Existing music channels

Music channels

• MTV is an American basic cable and satellite television channel owned by the MTV Networks Music and Logo Group. MTV launched on August 1st 1981 and its purpose was to play music videos.

• MTV’s main target audience were young adults however, it has now changed and is targeted at adolescents as well as young adults, playing mainstream and popular music.

• The first music video shown on MTV was The Buggles-Video Killed the Radio Star.

• Kerrang! Is a digital television station owned by Box Television, which is connected to the magazine Kerrang! The TV stations was launched in 2001 and plays mainly nu metal and pop punk/skate punk. The types of bands and artists they air are Green Day, Panic! at the Disco, Paramore and You Me At Six

• Kiss TV is a commercial music television channel from Box Television, available on Sky, Virgin Media, Smallworld Cable and TalkTalk Plus TV digital television platforms. The channel’s playlist consists of mainly mainstream hip-hop, Dance and R&B. It is based on the radio station Kiss 100 and was launched in 1994. Kiss also has a radio station.

Music channels

• YouTube is a video sharing website that was created by three PayPal employees in February 2005. It is now owned by Google since the late 2006. Users can upload, view and share videos. Roughly around 60 hours of new videos are uploaded to the site every minute. YouTube display a wide variety of video content, including movie clips, TV clips and music videos. The target audience for YouTube is wide range because there are many different music videos and other clips on there for everyone depending on their taste in music.

• AKA is a British music channel that is aired on SKY and is owned by All Around The World Productions. AKA also have a YouTube channel and the main genres of music they play are grime, hip hop and urban. Its main focus is to play music videos from upcoming artists that may become well known world wide and find there place in the industry as established artists.