Audience

New Media Technologies are now being personalised for each consumer: their needs, interests and their personality. An example of this is with the new range of Apple iPods with different advertisements for different customers needs, for example, the iPod nano advertisements read "a little video for everyone," and "don't just take you iPod nano on a run. Let it take you." This advertisement appeals to two types of audience, the audience who would like to watch their favourite television shows whenever they want and for people who want to exercise and let their music control their exercise. New Media Technologies have given the audiences chances of combining their mobile phone with their iPods, playing games, watch videos, store photos. Also, the audiences are using the new media technologies in the music industry as fashion accessories, it is now the norm for a teenager to have some sort of hi-tech MP3 player or iPod. These new additions to music technology are giving the audiences a new way of interacting with new media technologies with the new options given by Apple. Apple also target what people want to be able to do with their music and where they listen to it: "Take your music on the road with seamless integration between your car and iPod."

All of these are advantages to the audience because they give them good quality music and the choice of what induvidual songs they want to download and control over what they listen to, unlike a decade ago.

(http://www.apple.com/uk/itunes/)



Also, bands are now giving their audiences easier ways to listen and upload music, Keane's new single, Nothing In My Way, is now available to buy for £3.99 and comes along with other tracks, videos and wallpapers. The interesting thing is that the single will come in a memory stick. This new technology will appeal to rock fans purely as a different way of buying music which is held and stored easier. This will also be a great selling point for bands.

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/oct/19/arts.digitalmedia)



Internet fan bases:-



Internet fan bases for bands and artists are now giving the music audiences chances to be involved with the bands and to get priority tickets for their gigs. For example, The Killer's fan base, The Victims, members of this internet fanbase are allowed exclusive and priority tickets to The Killer's gigs and festivals that they are playing at world-wide.

(http://www.thekillersmusic.com/)



Social-networking:-



Social-networking websites such as MySpace are allowing music audiences to interact with their favourite bands, find out tour events, single/album releases etc.

Shannon Ferguson, the European managing director of Yahoo! Music, said: "Users are becoming increasingly involved in generating content, through blogging, making recommendations to friends, building playlists, posting photos from concerts, and even creating their own videos."

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/oct/04/netmusic.digitalmedia)



Social-networking has given music bands and artists the chance to appeal to their target demographic (16-25 year-olds). Also, it is apparant that it is not only young "rock-lovers" who use the internet to get their music, classical fans are beginning to join the "digital music revolution". In a survey by Gramophone magazine, it was found that 57% of classical music listeners have converted their CDs into digital form.



Disadvantages for the audience:-



In the case of new music technologies their are winners and losers with information rich and poor, the people who cannot afford to buy and iPod and buy and download any music that they want and so lose out because they are information poor. The audiences who are the winners are the information rich. Also, the new music technologies, especially on the internet, are creating a fragmented society. The social-networking websites create divisions between different music genre's fan bases, causing discrimination between fan bases.