[josefresco]

Question: Does MTV pay the record labels for showing their videos? I'm not being a smart-ass, I'm really asking and didn't want to rip into this without having some background.\

The article says that they used to consider MTV a promotional partner, do they still?

[marilyn]

MTV has changed dramatically from 10-20 years ago. They have moved away from playing music videos around the clock. Now the majority of their content is teen reality shows and the like. Televised music videos is limited to very few, already very popular artists.

[danhak]

This doesn't really answer the original question, in which I am also interested. What about MTV2, Fuse, BET, VH1, etc? Do TV networks have to pay royalties on music videos?

[krakensden]

MTV2 doesn't play much music videos either- for that matter, neither does BET or VH1.

[jsm386]

Still, I also would like to know the answer to the original question. Surely videos are still played somewhere. Do labels get paid when that happens?

[geedee77]

I don't know for certain if MTV have any special deals with the music companies (I did used to work for EMI but not in royalties) but everyone who plays music public needs to pay for it. This includes radio and TV stations.

I think the point probably is that music videos tended to be given away as freebies (although public playing of them would still incur a royalty payment) but now the music video is seen as part of the sellable product. I was actually part of the team that helped implement the technology part of this at EMI some years ago.