In The City Manchester ‘Do Charts Matter for Music Videos Anymore?’ Panel
Radar was in Manchester last week doing this panel with:
• head of MTV UK
• MD for The Official Charts Company
• The Box
• Joost
• BT Vision
• Dylan White
Moderated by Chris Cowey (bring back Top Of The Pops! The Ting Tings say yes!) it was a good discussion with people generally agreeing lists and recommendations of many kinds are more relevant as competition for attention gains pace every day. Interesting to find out that tracks in the official top 40 often don’t have video! How does that happen?
In The City Buzz
ITC is an annual conference for UK and international music industry people and Radar met a load of managers, artists, labels, publishers who like what Radar’s got to offer.
High points;
• Cerne Canning (Franz Ferdinand) and James Sansom (Kaiser Chiefs) on the managers panel stood out as two managers who are really on the ball with digital strategy.
• The mobile panel – Nokia, Vodaphone, Blackberry et al are hoping their subscription streaming and pay to download offerings are going to take off where online failed.
• Big Champagne did a great review of Radiohead’s In Rainbows plot – judged hugely successful by him, and I agree.
Attempting a summary of the whole event, I’d say business as usual – free to cheap music, make money selling value-added music packages, T shirts and gig tickets. Every promoted track needs a music video, astonishingly some bands are getting by without one – can’t see that going on for much longer, and there’s a vast and growing market for budget music videos.
• Special mention: Jarvis Cocker did a fab lecture on the importance of lyrics, complete with pointy stick and a performance of the first song he ever wrote (aged 14).
UK Music Video Awards
On Tuesday I went the inaugural UK Music Video Awards, courtesy of the lovely David Knight who organised it all with Louise Stevens. A very veritable gathering of talented people at the Odeon West End.
• Henry Schofield won the ‘Best Budget Video’ award for ‘Me and Mandy’, I voted for it so was pleased to see it win.
• Kinga Burza won Best Pop Video for Kate Nash’s Foundations, another video I love.
• Especially good fun was Adam Buxton’s intro video “Bush addresses the MVAs” (with a bit more opinion on ‘In Rainbows’ and on Laura Marling).
It was a grand night, there’s so many amazingly accomplished people in the creative and production sides of the music video industry, I was very inspired by the professionalism and achievement on show. And very delicate on Wednesday.