Why are they commercially viable with such small audience shares?
Despite having such small audience shares, music channels such as ‘Kerrang’ or ‘MTV’ are commercially viable as they are owned by large media conglomerates such as Viacom or EMAP, which are able to produce these shows as they have many different revenue streams and often own a number of different music channels appealing to different audiences depending on their music genre. This means that they are able to target and reach a niche audience with the music channels. The music channels are also able to generate profit through advertising and marketing campaigns with other companies. An example is EMAP’s advertising campaign with Creative Zen; this was a huge success and generated massive profits for both companies. EMAP pitched an idea to Creative proposing a media first, break-through idea: EPG (Electronic Programming Guide) strategic. This enabled Creative to control 22 music channels at the most relevant times of the day for their audience, giving Zen 13 consecutive channels on the EPG and the ability to design their adverts to appeal to the people watching the specific music genre channels. The campaign was extremely successful with Zen reaching 76% of their core target audience of 16-34 adults and receiving over 46,991 entries for their promotion, their product sold out nationwide within weeks.