Matt Garlinghouse was inspired to build TuneFind after not being able to find the music featured on television shows Scrubs and The West Wing. Since then, TuneFind has become an online place for accurate, comprehensive information on what fans hear on their favorite shows and movies. Now with more than 2.2 million unique visitors monthly, the site has become a spot for fans of 780+ shows and another 780+ films. Music supervisors who want to spread the word about emerging artists and new tracks they’ve discovered are also utilizing it.
“From the beginning we decided to build a comprehensive site about music on TV,” says Garlinghouse, who with his team of friends and active contributors, came up with a system that helps users vet and boost accurate information.
TuneFind draws on crowdsourced and -rated data, as well as ingesting TV and movie metadata from other online databases and connecting song info to iTunes and other music services. Over its 10 years, it has gained an active, knowledgeable following of dedicated super-users, as well as a strong relationship with supervisors, who often send the site info about a show’s soundtrack right as it airs.
“There were mostly fan sites at the beginning, so some specific shows had sites dedicated to that show. They had music only for that show, if they even bothered to include it,” explains Garlinghouse. “It seemed to me there needed to be a resource for all of those. When you have all the songs, you can cross-reference. You can figure out what other shows have used that particular song.”
In addition, TuneFind has also become a forum for TV- and film-loving music fans. “TuneFind has Q&A forums on every episode and movie page,” explains Amanda Byers, TuneFind’s managing director, one of Garlinghouse’s longtime collaborators on the site. “There is a ton of activity there, and we were the first site to have that capability focused on the music. It drove a lot of interest and usage of the site.”
Users will do more than converse or sort out a difference in data. They’ll coordinate reaching out to a production company or artist to find out what track they heard, or they’ll start a Twitter campaign to encourage a band to release a track that was featured in a show or movie, but not yet available to purchase or stream. Users also spend a notable amount of time on the site, clocking an average of 2:30 minutes’ interaction over three million monthly sessions. “We now have international coverage for shows that are airing in Canada or U.K. but not in the U.S.,” notes Byers. “Our user base has grown enough to verify the data for a small-audience show, like some of the international closed captioned shows aired on Netflix.”
Long-form narrative shows and films have can be a way to find music that suits a listener’s personal tastes, so TuneFind also aims to act as a boon for musicians, who interact with fans on the site. The site features artist pages, so users can find other tracks (and other placements) by the same artist.
“People are experiencing a lot of new ways to find the next cool song they are excited about,” reflects Byers. “TuneFind is one of those ways. If you’re already hooked on a show, its characters and its vibe, that’s an amazing platform to launch from. You’ve got these fans who want to be exposed to new music, and your music aligns with their tastes.”
For more information, visit tunefind.com.
