JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE - RECORD COMPANIES SLASH BUDGETS FOR MUSIC VIDEOS

RECORD COMPANIES SLASH BUDGETS FOR MUSIC VIDEOS

With the recording industry continuing to grapple with falling sales and Internet piracy, record companies are dramatically reducing their budgets for music videos, assuming that most of them will be accessed from YouTube and other video-sharing websites and watched on laptops and video iPods rather than on big TV screens, the Associated Press observed Thursday. Award-winning music video director Samuel Bayer told A.P. that his recent video, "What Goes Around ... Comes Around," with Justin Timberlake may be among the last videos costing more than $1 million to produce. "A comet hit the earth and the dinosaurs are dying," Bayer told A.P. "There's a new age coming. I think those days are over with."

07/09/2007