With a line-up of heavyweights, including segments with President of Sony Entertainment Network, Tim Schaaff, and Steve Lillywhite – a record producer who has worked with, among others, U2 and the Rolling Stones – plus Grammywinning singer-songwriter Imogen Heap, the 2011 edition of Music Matters will also be a leap into adulthood for the event, venturing from its home of Hong Kong abroad for the fi rst time. “Our move to Singapore gives us a solid platform for new talent to attend, perform and develop a deeper understanding of the music business,” says Jasper Donat, President of Music Matters, adding that the event’s relationship with CASBAA, an industrybased advocacy group for the promotion of multichannel televisions and its content, has always yielded a strong showing from the television community for the events. This year, not only MTV but also ESPN, Fox, Comcast and the BBC will be among the representation from the television community – boosted by the inaugural Digital Matters, a sister event. The aim of Music Matters is to celebrate and share the success stories of the music industry across all mediums, from digital web content to live performances, but it is probably in television that the greatest leaps can be made. Music has long played a pivotal role in television programming, jumping from an aural to a visual form as an extension of the evolutionary leap from radio to television. More than just songs, music pervades every pore of television programming. The breezy, brassy refrains of the I Love Lucy theme immediately evokes memories of the popular sitcom. And every news broadcaster – from CNN to Singapore’s Channel 5 News – has its own distinctive opening theme. Sometimes it also works the other way. The Ed Sullivan Show in the USA arguably shot Beatlemania into the stratosphere in 1964, while the BBC’s Top of the Pops quickly turned musical performances into a vehicle for primetime entertainment. Across Asia, songs serving as theme tunes for popular programmes and soap operas, such as ‘My Memory’ from South Korea’s series Winter Sonata, quickly became a chart hit. Even TV advertising has it successes – the career of Filipino popstar Nikki Gil was launched by the hit song she sang in a Coca-Cola advert. The intertwining of music and television truly took off in 1981, the year MTV launched. Like a rolling stone the network defi ned the musical notions of an entire generation. It launched its Asian outpost in 1991 and has gone from strength to strength since, focusing on a broad pan-Asian mix of content. Sari Trusilo, Senior Director and Head of Content of MTV Southeast Asia and Greater China, expands on this, “Music programming catering to local tastes is of top priority to us. There is no single model that fi ts Asia’s diverse culture, so we’ve expanded our Asian music content to include everything from specifi c Korean and Japanese shows to dedicated channels for Indonesia, China and India, as well as large scale events like World Stage Live in Malaysia. These complement our US properties like Jersey Shore, Behind The Music and Chart Attack for an international mix that maintains our connection to our young audience.” The heterogeneity of Asian tastes, however, can be challenge. And it is for that reason that MTV Asia supports events like Music Matters. Omar Gepiga, the Senior Director of MTV’s Asian Brand Management division, sums it up: “Our success in Asia has been based upon building a strong brand presence. As such, we view events like this with importance as it allows us to identify trends and opportunities, and strengthen trade relationships in the constantly evolving music business.” It isn’t all smooth sailing though. Lit Jit Woei, composer and creative director of JIA Recordings, thinks the growth of television programming can be a double-edged sword for musicians. Specialising in music production for audio-visual projects in the Southeast Asian region, he notes that “Nowadays, musicians have never been busier with the amount of licensing deals we get, particularly from TV. Southeast Asian music programming isn’t as wide as in the West or even Japan, where music can command primetime attention through programmes like Later… With Jools Holland and HBO concerts, but it is changing quickly. Just like photography, music production is getting cheaper and more accessible these days, so being a musician in Asia can now be a full-time career. But with all this expansion and the subsequent affordability, it’s tough for us to survive against big foreign studios and players.” One solution to supporting this side of the industry would be to expand the variety. Popular productions like Singapore Idol or Indonesia’s Got Talent not only spur the search for new music talent but also provide jobs for the music industry. Live n’ Loaded was a short-lived weekly talent show on Mediacorp’s Channel 5 that exposed upcoming musical talent in Singapore. Despite being applauded by the industry and being popular with youth, the show failed to secure a sponsor and was axed. Still, much of the content getting airtime in Asia is foreign cultural imports. Big pay-TV broadcasters here, such as Discovery Networks, NBC-Universal and AETN All Asia Networks – have built much of their popularity on programmes produced in America and Europe, therefore even less room for local music to play a role, a fact these networks readily admit. Discovery said at present there is no room for such content, whereas NBC-Universal Asia said local musicians are usually relegated to one off promos. In contrast, this relationship is very different in the U.S, where there is regular cross promotion of new singles on shows such as TrueBlood and Weeds. HBO’s Six Feet Under played a large part of this movement, regularly featuring new and independent artists during its fi ve season run. Making some headway is Malaysia’s Astro, which established a talent management arm that manages the musical talent gleaned from its reality shows, including Akademi Fantasia and Attam. “This department focuses on the development and training of our local talents so that they have an opportunity to step up to a global arena. Astro represents these artists as a talent manager and also as a recording label, and thus we give them the chance to act, perform and host events that fall under our banner,” says Henry Tan, COO of Astro. Similarly, Singapore’s Mediacorp has an initiative to assist burgeoning music talent. Serving as the broadcasters’ in-house music production team, the Audio Post division has also branched out in providing services for external parties, including local and international production houses. “More than 90 per cent of the music for our internal productions, from theme songs to music scoring, is provided by Audio Post,” notes Andrew Cheng, Senior VP of Production Resource and Artiste Management at Mediacorp, who adds that, “We do also deal directly with record companies to collaborate on songs and music for specifi c shows.” This type of structure is replicated throughout the rest of the region; Indonesia’s Indosiar, Thailand’s TrueVisions and the GMA Network in the Philippines each have their own music talent management arms, which perform similar functions. This is also true in parts of India and China; the challenge, then, is to expand that ambition and strike out beyond the borders into internationally-marketable content. The bonds between music and television in Asia are already deep. But as Lim and Tan note, there is a greater impetus to feature more local content than merely transposing the hits of America and Europe to the small screen. “It is paramount for Asia to be an exporter of pop culture, not just an importer, so we at MTV Asia always want to be ahead of the pack when it comes to genres or artists that are breaking region wide and taking them to the next level,” says Trusilo of MTV, adding that the channel has considerably expanded its Asian music-based programming over the past decade. It has yielded a few global successes. The Wonder Girls, a group groomed by MTV Korea since 2006, broke into the American market in 2009 by supporting the Jonas Brothers on tour and became one of the few ever Asian artists to place a single on the Billboard Hot 100. Says Astro’s Tan, “Music at a mass level tends to thrive when it can reach its target audience. The appeal of dedicated music channels is more niche. For music to truly break through in Southeast Asia, it requires the reach of a successful general entertainment channel. And that’s where we come in, building an ecosystem of Astro talent that we utilise across our shows.” Donat of Music Matters agrees. “Music plays a huge role in local networks, whether they’re digital music channels in India or mega talent searches such as Supergirl in China. But there’s potential to expand further. I think it’s only a matter of time before a localised Glee-style show is launched somewhere in this region – if it hasn’t already!” With more than half of the world’s population spread across more than a thousand languages, galvanizing that potential will take talent, perseverance, tenacity, creativity and funding – a primordial soup that needs to be assembled, nurtured and protected.