IT IS DEBATABLE whether Warner Music has performed any cultural service in giving Paris Hilton a record deal. But the American company behind Madonna and Linkin Park — when it is trying, that is — cannot be faulted for trying to help Paris along with digital marketing, which serves as a reminder that as media gets weird in the new media era, music is among the most valuable content around.
When YouTube wants to break into the business of selling advertisements, the instant success TV website turns to Paris for help in selling its first ad. When Google launched a UK version of its video site, Paris was there to greet new arrivals with the video of Stars are Blind, her reggae-inspired single.
Video, of course, is what helped the heiress to break into the big time, but now it is her turn to be exploited by Warner, which is picking up a chunk of the ad revenues generated on YouTube.
Gone are the days when music companies simply gave their videos to MTV or even control of digital technology to Apple. But in the world of digital content, music is fast emerging as the must-have: after the near terminal brush with Napster, consumers are beginning to come round to paying for music online, when other types of content, such as newspapers and even books, are being given away.
Music is a linchpin of social networking sites such as Bebo and, although newspapers try desperately to podcast their way into new audiences, it is probably fair to assume that what people really want to listen to is not a nasal, poorly read business news report, but some good tunes. This, after all, is the principle on which most radio works, and even Radio 4 has Desert Island Discs.
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Even the music industry has begun to realise its strength. For all the popularity of singing, it has been a lousy business. Margins are low. The big four global record companies are collectively worth not much more than £10 billion. That figure sounds impressive until you set it against the market value of, say, BSkyB (38 per cent owned by News Corporation, the parent company of The Times), a one-country broadcaster that is worth £9 billion. This explains why Universal wants to get into bed with Channel 4’s internet radio bid, and why the world’s No 1 record company wants to produce, or at least introduce, content for television, pushing acts of the quality of Girls Aloud on to digital television. The worry, of course, is that as the record companies push back the boundaries, the editorial independence of previously separate media may be put under pressure in the new era.
Yet that is mitigated by internet rating systems: on Google, Stars are Blind has earned three stars out of five in ratings submitted by 23,766 listeners. There is also the good sense of the record-buying public. In the US the bland single barely made the Top 20, although the album made it as high as No 6 in the quiet month of August. Warner may have creamed off a few ad dollars on the back of the YouTube deal, but marketing, mercifully, takes you only so far.