Music television

There has been much written about the ailing music industry and the strategies musicians need to adopt to build a career in the digital age.

The best money earner these days surely has to be getting your music used in a TV ad or show.

One show that features a lot of music is the popular teen comedy Glee. In fact songs from Glee have been huge sellers of late.

In 2009 'Don't stop believing' by Journey became the first song to achieve 2 million downloads. Most of which can be atributed to the song being used for high rotation promos for the launch of Glee.

The song was also performed in the show and the cast version has recently gone gold with around half a million download sales.

Another 24 songs from Glee also made the US charts in 2009. That's amazing.

Of course the downside to the Glee success story is that we're very probably going to be inundated by numerous crap musical teen comedy shows that are nowhere near as good (or original) as Glee.

But at least some hard up musicians might make a few dollars from them.

Ad after ad afer ad

One of the most annoying things about Australian television is the way that programs never seen to start or finish on time.

I always thought this was some kind of ploy by the networks to stop you switching channels at the end of a show.

Turns out that may not be the case at all.

According to the regulatory authority, networks are allowed to air a maximum of 13 minutes of advertising per hour during the evening.

I think you’d have to agree that’s more than enough ads.

Yet our TV networks are blatantly flouting these restrictions.

According to a survey conducted by the Herald Sun, networks often cram in as much as 19 minutes of advertising during an hour show.

19 minutes!

No wonder the shows don’t start or finish on time.

And no wonder so many people say they hate advertising.

Theft or fandom?

You know that downloading television shows has become commonplace when there’s a two page article about it in your local newspaper.

Just to clarify - that’s the local paper that gets delivered to your house free of charge. Not an actual daily newspaper.

I couldn’t help noticing the article over breakfast this morning as it featured a photo of a small stack on TV show DVDs. And I owned pretty much all of them.

It was so nice to read something in the mainstream media about downloading that wasn’t hysterical or hyperbolic.

In fact I found myself nodding along as I read.

Bizarrely it seems many of the shows that are popular in Australia, like Desperate Housewives and House, are also amongst the most downloaded.

Why?

Because people want to see episodes as soon as they can. They don’t want to wait. In fact they can’t.

They are not downloading to steal. They are not downloading to burn discs and sell them at flea markets.

These people are true fans of a show.

So why are they constantly tarred with the brush of theft and piracy?

Hello Tucker!

Hot on the heels of my rediscovery of the Gobbledock comes the resurrection of another long forgotten Aussie advertising icon.

Although I don't miss Tucker like I miss the Gobbledock.

Chippies!!!

Sometimes, late at night, when my kids are asleep and my wife's gone to bed, I find myself wondering what became of the Gobbledock.

Breaking taboos

Last night I watched the dvd of Secret Diary of a Callgirl. Pretty raunchy for a TV show.

When I was talking about it at work today one of the girls remarked that there are very few things you can't do in public.

She meant on TV but said public by mistake. Really made me laugh.

She does have a point though.

One thing I thought I'd never see done in public is design.

Now it seems even that taboo has been broken.

And Iain Tait tells me it will be broken again at Cut & Paste in London in April.

It's a design-off basically. In front of an audience.

Designers get a brief. A time limit. And away they go.

Love to see something like this happen in Melbourne. Perhaps at this year's AGDA Ideas?

Here's a video of a previous event. Looks like fun.