Whether its broadcast or streaming platforms more opportunities are presenting themselves for under-the-radar artists. Some shows might only license 1 or 2 songs but others literally have their soundtracks flooded with indie artists.
Many MTV and CW shows license a bunch of songs for various montages and the fees can sometimes not be that great, but the exposure and residuals can be decent and ongoing. For example show's like Teen Mom or Catfish are aired around the world for years which can be very fruitful for an artist.
Some shows might only have an end title track licensed and then you have shows like Blue Bloods which only licensed 4 songs in 22 episodes of season 9 and Chicago Fire which licensed 9 songs in 20 episodes in the last season.
Some shows will only license periodical songs such as The Goldbergs and The Crown or a mix of modern and periodical songs such as Cobra Kai.
Shows like P-Valley licensed 138 songs in 8 episodes which is a ton of music. And Roswell, New Mexico licensed 100 songs in the last 13 episode season. Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist licensed 132 songs in 12 episodes of the first season – that's a lot of songs!
Researching shows and music supervisors can take time but it's always worth it. If you know the kind of shows that your catalog works in check out their playlists on tunefind.com to double check that your songs are a strong fit. The chances of getting a response from a music supervisor working on a show is a lot greater if you're reaching out with great music that perfectly fits the soundtrack.
If you're really serious about getting sync deals then go one step further and get to know a show, their characters and storylines. You'll start to realise that certain genres get married to certain characters and certain keywords in songs get used to drive the characters storylines.
Here's a few examples of the volume of songs licensed in various shows…
- 'Animal Kingdom' - Season 4 - 80 songs in 13 episodes
- 'American Horror Story' – Season 9 - 43 songs in 9 episodes
- 'All American' – Season 2 - 208 Songs in 16 episodes
- 'Billions': Season 5 - 23 songs in 7 episodes
- 'Burden of Truth': Season 3 - 11 songs in 8 episodes
- 'Catfish The TV Show' – season 8 - 81 songs in 26 episodes
- 'Charmed' – Season 2 - 111 songs in 19 episodes
- 'Killing Eve' – Season 3 - 109 songs in 8 episodes
- 'High Maintenance' – Season 4 - 63 songs in 9 episodes
- 'The Blacklist' – Season 7 - 49 songs in 19 episodes
- 'The Walking Dead' – Season 9 - 34 songs in 16 episodes
In summary when targeting your catalog study the shows soundtracks.