Extension of outlets

The music video has become a huge part of the music world in the past 30 years but it dates back to 1926 where there was the invention of the "talkies". This was the first time images were being used to accompany sound. They were typically six minutes in duration, and featured Art Deco-style animations and backgrounds combined with film of the performer singing. By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon. In the United States, they helped secure Hollywood's position as one of the world's most powerful cultural/commercial systems. The 1940's then saw the next breakthrough in music video when the "soundies" were released. They were three-minute musical films, produced in New York, Chicago, and Hollywood and often contained short dance sequences. The films were displayed on the Panoram, which was a coin-operated film jukebox, in nightclubs, bars, restaurants, factory lounges, and amusement centers. In the late 1950s the Scopitone, a visual jukebox, was invented in France and short films were produced by many French artists to accompany their songs.
There was a breakthrough in 1964 when The Beatles featured in their first feature video which was in black and white. They continued to make more video's for their future releases and really had a huge impact on the music industry with other artists producing videos themselves. Top of the Pops began playing music videos in the late 1970s, although the BBC placed strict limits on the number of 'outsourced' videos TOTP could use. Therefore a good video would increase a song's sales as viewers hoped to see it again the following week. In 1981, the U.S. video channel MTV launched, airing "Video Killed the Radio Star" and beginning an era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. With this new outlet for material, the music video would, by the mid-1980s, grow to play a central role in popular music marketing. Music videos now started to be more than experimental films and started to have more of a storyline to the video that linked back to the song. In 1983, the most successful and influential music video of all time was released — the nearly 14-minute-long video for Michael Jackson's song "Thriller". The video set new standards for production, having cost $500,000 to film. In December 1992, MTV began listing directors with the artist and song credits, reflecting the fact that music videos had increasingly become an auteur's medium. 2005 saw the launch of the website YouTube, which made the viewing of online video faster and easier. In 2010, Lady Gaga's music video "Bad Romance" made headlines by becoming the most-viewed video on YouTube, music-related or otherwise, with 130 million views; it had over 350 million views by the early 2011. It in turn was beaten later in the year by the video for Justin Bieber's song "Baby", which had over 500 million views by the early 2011. The music video industry has grown loads in recent years and it's interesting to see how this will continue to grow...