The new radio? More fans finding music on TV

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Exposure for new artists
TV shows aren’t just incorporating more pop songs into their programming. They’re also changing how they’re using those songs. Whereas pop music most often used to highlight scenes featuring young people, now they’re increasingly replacing instrumental music to amplify the resonance of any scene.

One of the best known examples: The emotional montage closing out the final episode of “Six Feet Under” was built on Sia’s “Breathe Me.” Music supervisor Gary Calamar brought the song to the attention of series creator and executive producer Alan Ball after Ball indicated he was looking for a song that was “unknown and under-the-radar because you wouldn’t have come in with any preconceived notions,” Calamar recalls.

Australian native Sia had been an unknown entity in the U.S. at the time, so the show’s use of her song essentially represented her American debut. “We were able to expose this new artist,” Calamar says.

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Record labels are eager to capitalize on these opportunities. Avery Lipman, senior vice president and co-founder of Universal Music Group’s Universal Republic Records, says his label employs three people to seek out licensing deals, up from a staff of one a few years ago. Its biggest success so far has been with British R&B singer Amy Winehouse, who has had three songs placed on “Grey’s Anatomy,” CBS’ “CSI: Miami” and ABC’s “Men In Trees,” among other shows.

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None of those deals led to a blockbuster “Chasing Cars’ moment,” Lipman acknowledges. But he says that the licensing pacts have been an integral part of Universal Republic’s overall marketing strategy for Winehouse’s album “Back In Black,” which has generated robust U.S. unit sales of 816,000 since its release in March, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

“The public can watch a show, hear some great music and go to the Web site and there’ll be a whole page of (featured songs),” Lipman says. “I think that the dots have been connected better than ever before.”

Boost for indie musicians
But while TV exposure has spawned commercial success stories like the Fray and Snow Patrol, those tend to be rare exceptions to the rule. Where the TV licensing boom has perhaps had its broadest impact on the music business has been on the more modest sales arena inhabited by independent musicians, who’ve historically been shut out of radio.

What has emerged is a mutually beneficial relationship for both TV and indie music. TV producers might shell out upwards of $50,000 for the use of a song by an established artist on a major label, but can sometimes pay as little as several hundred dollars for the use of a song by an unknown talent. Another benefit: the hip cachet that comes from featuring new music.