Music

The Golden Age of Tv Is Boosting The Music Industry

Andrew Parker

Oct 15, 2019

We are, as you may or may not know, living in the golden age of television. As more shows hit Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, fans of shows such as Stranger Things, Breaking Bad, and Transparent are rushing to listen to the music in their favorite shows. It’s true, there is a lot of good music on these shows! According to The Guardian, “the use of music across major on-demand platforms has more than tripled (up 238%) in the past five years- from 145bn minutes in 2014 to 490bn minutes in 2018.” For example, Mad Men paid the Beatles $250,000 for the use of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows.’ And British electronic band the Cinematic Orchestra was one of the first to top the Hollywood Reporter’s top TV songs chart with their song ‘To Build a Home.’ The song has been streamed 200 million times on Spotify, hit number one after appearing in Netflix’s Orange is the New Black and then after being featured in NBC’s This Is Us.

Several guitars, an electric piano, a microphone, and headphones in a at home studio

Via Unsplash

Ninja Tune is a record label company that has noticed this trend and jumped on it. They saw the demand and decided to launch a division dedicated production music. Martin Dobson, Ninja Tune’s head of worldwide sync, said TV provided “a robust income stream” and it makes sense for artists and labels to respond accordingly. Dobson continued, “The internet has led to a proliferation in TV, film and other audio-visual output, accordingly there are more opportunities for music to be used. We are fortunate enough to have experienced the music of several artists, including the Cinematic Orchestra, being used in artful and creatively sympathetic ways which have resulted in new interest – and when that happens it is almost immediately identifiable via streams, Shazams, social media and so on.”