3 Journal of Media Research, 8/2010, pp. 3-11 Music video, media policies and audiovisual consumption culture in Spain at the turn of the century 1 Prof. Eduardo VIÑUELA, Ph.D. University of Oviedo, Spain e-mail: vinuelaeduardo@uniovi.es Abstract. Music video has always been related to the evolution of television. The possibilities of promotion for popular music through television forced the emergence of this new audiovisual genre, whose importance has being growing since the early years of cable TV in USA, especially with the first music channel, MTV. The expansion of cable and satellite TV in other countries during the eighties and nineties provoked a change in the promotion strategies of popular music, because the existence of music television channels made audiovisual products more important, and so record companies started to invest more money in music video and TV promotion. Through the last twenty-five years media corporations have planned their strategies as synergy projects that have involved different cultural markets (music, cinema, television etc.) and also as global- local (“glocal”) strategies that had to deal with the new state of distribution channels. This situation has deeply changed the music industry provoking a concentration process and a transformation in the international panorama of music. Since the development of cable and satellite TV has been different in each country the reaction of music industry has had a different evolution. This article demonstrates how the arrival of satellite TV to 1 This investigation has been developed as part of the research project “Música y cultura en la España del siglo XX: dialéctica de la modernidad y diálogos con Hispanoamérica”, sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. Ref.: HAR2009-10865.