Key Terms

Production: Production is the recording and making of the music.
Distribution: Promoting and getting the music out into shops, radios and online.
Marketing: Like distribution only deals with the interest of the media product to get people to want to buy it.
Consumption: How people buy and listen to music i.e. buying CDs, downloading, buying concert tickets, listening to music via Youtube and radio.
The Music Industry: The organisation of various activities such as; selling compositions, recordings and performances of music, and distributing it.
File Sharing: Uploading music online for others to download and listen to without having to pay for it.
Vertical Integration: A media company that profits and benefits from all areas of production, distribution and consumption. An example of this would be Apple because they control their processor, hardware, software and services together.
Synergy: Marketing and distribution of a range of related media products across various different sectors and platforms. An example of this would be Pop Idol as they combined different areas of the media industry i.e music, TV, magazine.
Technological Convergence: The hardware and software of different products come together as one product i.e. the iPhone - hardware and software of a phone, iPod, camera and computer.
Copyright: Owned rights of a creative or intellectual property i.e a song.
Conventions: The rules and process of how things are done.
Demographic: A portion of a population at who you target your product at. Considers age, gender and  culture.
Download: The practice of selecting and receiving digital information from an online source on a computer, as opposed to sending it by upload.
Hardware: The physical parts of a computer and related devices. Internal hardware devices include motherboards, hard drives, and RAM. External hardware devices include monitors, keyboards, mice, printers, and scanners.
Independent: A media organisation or activity that is not connected to a major company.
Subsidiary: A record label owned by another larger label or music group.
Horizontal Integration: The process of two companies coming together through merging. An example of this would be when in 1998 PolyGram merged with Seagram to become Universal Music Group.
The Big 3: The 3 MAJOR music labels: Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. Formally 'The Big Four', became 3 after EMI's merger with Universal in November 2011.
Small and Medium Enterprises (SME): Companies whose headcount or turnover falls below certain limits.