Exam Case study

Task 2 

Question 2:

Research One Direction & their releases: Have they used any songs on Sony's back catalogue to re-image/brand and release (look at their weekly releases over the show on iTunes - who owns the rights to this song, are they subsidiaries of Sony Records?)

One direction have writers that write their songs for them, although the boy band sing the songs they do not legally own them. The boys have done a cover of teenage kicks, this was for charity and this song was not owned by the boys or sony records. 

Question 3:
How are One Direction is promoted & distributed (after and including Xfactor), how successful they are (sales, downloads, news articles, online games, advertising, Brit awards). How can do they create relationship with their audience?

X-factor was a massive part of One Directions courier; to start with One Direction never entered The X Factor! The five members of the band actually entered the competition as solo artists. However, the Simon Cowell, who created the show, put the guys together into a group. All of this happened in 2010 when Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, and Louis Tomlinson appeared on the seventh season of x-factor. One direction became very famous during the duration of the show. During the x-factor they built a good fan base, throughout the show they appeared in many different magazines and newspapers, the band also appeared on you tube with some of their live performances. Although they did well throughout the competition, the boys did not win the show, finishing third to winner Matt Cardle and runner-up Rebecca Ferguson. Although they      boy band came third, for some reason the boys are doing better than Rebecca and matt.

After the x-factor the boy band was signed to Syco Records, which is Simon Cowell’s label in the UK and Columbia Records in the US. After this the boy band grew as a group and slowly become more and more popular. The show also helped them progress as a group as they appeared again the next year as guest performers, the show also allowed them to gain more fans at the x-factor UK tour.

Once signed to the record label the boy band promoted themselves in many different ways, they have grown and developed and now have a twitter page with 11,179,160 follows and a Facebook page with 14,627,859 likes. One direction also have many videos on you tube with an average of 78,497,941 views per video! The boy band also use other social networking sites such as pintrest, tumblr, sound cloud and Get Glue. One direction also have a official website that allows you to see all of their new music and videos. Their website allows you to navigate to many different pages including, news, music, events, photos, videos and many more! The website also has links to other pages that the boy band have created, such as their Facebook page.

As well as creating their own web pages and posting their own videos, one direction’s fans do a lot of promoting and distributing. Many fans create Facebook pages and websites around the band themselves, this allows one direction’s music to be seen and heard without the band actually doing anything. Fans of one direction also distribute the bands music world wide without even knowing it, when fans that post music videos or songs that they like on you tube it allows a world wide audience to view the music, this promotes One Direction globally.

The bands loyal fan base kept the boys profile high, however their record company made it all possible with the release of their first single "What Makes You Beautiful’’. The band released their first album, ‘’up all night’’ in November of 2011. The album was the fastest selling debut album of 2011 in the UK and hit number 2 in the UK charts.

The boys won a Brit Award in Feb 2012 for "What Makes You Beautiful" this promoted them even more and helped them along their way. After they had won the award they went to the US to begin a new relationship with the fans out there. The album One Direction's "Up All Night" made history by becoming the first UK group to have a debut album enter the US Billboard chart at Number One.

The band announced a tour date at New York's famous Madison Square Garden, it sold out in 30 seconds. The boy band added more dates and was playing venues all over the world including the USA, Canada, Australia and Europe. This helped promote the music even more as a worldwide audience was hearing the music. One direction have now begun work on their second album, the band have more tour dates planned through 2012 and 2013. As of August 2012 the boys had sold 12 million records worldwide. To add to the promotion of the boy band Syco Film are planning a movie featuring the band, with a planned release date of October 2013.

The band has won many different awards through out their time in the business, looking into I found over 20 different awards! I have emended a picture of all the awards they have gained! The band are very successful now after appearing on the scene in August  2012. Since this time the band have had 3 albums. "Up All Night" and "Take Me Home" are two albums that sold over 1 million copies. Both albums reached the top of the best selling albums of 2012, "Up all Night" making it to number 3 and "Take Me Home" Reaching number 8. "Live While Your Young" wasn't as successful as the first two albums but still reached the charts. The Boys released four singles, with "what makes you beautiful" being the first one to be released and this one went straight to number 1 in the charts.

Through all of their success, One direction still create a relationship with their audience. After looking through many different social networking sites i can see that the majority of their fans are females between the age of 10 and 15. 

Using social media allows the band to build a relationship with their fans, many young girls on twitter tweet members of the band in hope of a reply, in order to build a relationship the band to tweet certain fans back. On a regular basis the band tweet about their music, the band also post on Facebook and you tube.

The band also puts on many tours and go to different music festivals in order to connect with their fans.

Question 4:

 How does X-Factor Produce, Market, Distribute & Exchange music and & how does this relate to Sony's back catalogue? 

X-factor is a very popular program that many people watch on the television every year. What people don’t realize is that the program is producing, marketing, distributing and exchanging music all the time it is on the tele. Simon Cowell, the A&R for Sony Entertainment, has the rights to x-factor.

 The show auditions millions of new artists who want to make it as a singer, as Simon owns his own label he is constantly looking for a new artist that he thinks he will be able to sign. Through out the production process they eliminate the terrible singers and the artists who are not going to make it in the industry. The show also turns the hopefuls into the stars the show expects them to be, costume designers, make up artists and mentors turn the artist into a new person who they believe will be more successful in the industry.

Through out the series of x-factor the new artist are getting promoted and marketed, as the x-factor is such a popular show the new artist are getting watched on the tele every Saturday night, they are also getting noticed by the press and getting put into magazines and newspapers. The contestants on the show also get marketed through different radio stations, the show also gets shown using You Tube, and this means the contestant already has a worldwide audience. As the show is so popular due to its own marketing the contestants is most likely defiantly going to be noticed. The show has its own sponsors (coke and talk talk), the show also has its own website, it is also shown on the tele, through magazine and newspapers and social networking.

The winner of x-factor then has a single distributed through out the country; the single is put on iTunes, sold in stores such as HMV and placed on social networking sites. The new single is also played on a variety of different radio stations; this helps the winner become even better known.

X-factor is linked to Sony’s back catalogue as Simon is free to use these songs, the artists that wins the show can produce a copy of an old song in order to promote themselves. For example, James Arthur released the song impossible, which was originally sung by Shontelle.