Head of Music at Freeform (a Disney-owned company) Matt Mugford gave us top tips at NARIP’s sold out Pitch Session this week to market music:
- Write great music – laughingly obvious, he said, but this is the bottom line.
- Write a LOT of it.
- Put music out in the market place – this is a volume business so the more you have out there, the more opportunities you generate.
“I am always looking for the newest music,” says Mugford. For him, better to send just one track – there is a much higher probability he will have time to listen. This is less the case when people send him dozens of tracks.
Mugford evaluated music presented to him for placement in his slate of returning shows and new programming, finding a number of selections he hopes to use for promo purposes and in-show for The Bold Type, Party of Five, Motherland: Fort Salem, Good Trouble, Grown-ish and other projects.
When to pitch? Traditional seasonal timelines no longer exist, there is no pilot season any more he told us, so pitching new music periodically (but not too much) is good.
Thank you Matt for making time for our session!
Photo (L-R) standing: Lamont Clemons, Tess Taylor, Matt Mugford, Israel Iniguez, Panauh Kalayeh. Kneeling: Norma Carpenter, Ian Vargas.