Radio on the TV on the Internet: Ranking the Networks' Music Sites

Not too long ago, it seemed like the only music you could find on prime-time television came in the form of theme songs and cheesy, atmospheric orchestral swells. But at some point between Full House and The O.C., everything changed. These days, more and more popular shows are showcasing quality tunes, and many major networks are doing their best to make the music they feature on their programs accessible to viewers via the almighty interwebs. Below, Paste susses through this veritable alphabet soup of a trend, ultimately declaring a victor:

The Network: ABC
The Site: ABC Music Lounge
The 411: The network launched its music-specific site in May. ABC boasts that 1,300 unique listeners cruise over to the site every day to check out what next-big-things are being featured.
Some Artists You'll Find: Bat for Lashes, Matt & Kim, Silversun Pickups, Rilo Kiley, Ingrid Michaelson
Pros: The nifty little player for the Music Lounge makes a radio station while you peruse the rest of the site. You can choose whether you'd rather watch videos, often of intimate live performances or interviews, or just listen to the studio tracks. Click on names of programs to read a little bit about what went into selecting music for them, and see some of the artists who have been featured previously.
Cons: The player doesn't allow the listener any control over what they hear; there is no "next" or "back" button. There is a menu in the video department, but before each one starts, you have to sit through an advertisement. And while the rest of the site directs you to information about some great bands, there is rarely the opportunity to actually listen to any of their work. Perhaps that's what the "Buy" button (which directs to Amazon) is for.

The Network: The CW
The Site: CW Music
The 411: Young people are known to love guilty-pleasure TV and good music. The CW now works to offer them both.
Some Artists You'll Find: It depends on which show you're looking into, but the likes of Katie Herzig, Santigold, The Submarines, Cold War Kids and MGMT are pretty common.
Pros: Click on the handy "Music" tab on The CW's homepage to find out what song you heard on whatever show you were watching. The music page will show you a few featured artists, or you can select a specific program and see what songs have been used on each episode since the pilot. Many of the shows' pages include videos of interviews with their music supervisor or featured bands.
Cons: Again, there aren't nearly as many opportunities to actually hear the music as we'd like. Instead, there are links to some of the artists' official sites and opportunites to buy music from an outside source, which differs depending on the show. Also, there's a notable lack of consistency, as the sites for some shows offer plenty of fancy extras and others provide little more than a list of songs.

The Network: MTV
The Site: Soundtrack.MTV.com
The 411: Music Television, which has been focusing on strangers who stop being polite and Cali-bred fashionistas for awhile, gets back to its roots.
Some Artists You'll Find: Mixed in with Top 40 sugar are occasional gems along the lines of Passion Pit, The Ting Tings, Little Jackie and Portugal. The Man. There are also several featured musicians who are absent from both mainstream radio as well and many independent magazines, so props to that.
Pros: With few exceptions, it is much easier to actually listen to music from MTV shows than it is on the aforementioned sites. You can add songs to a customized MTV playlist and then purchase them if you so choose. Music from some shows is organized not only by episode, but also by scene. Want to know what was playing while the girls from The Hills recapped the yacht party? MTV has you covered.
Cons: Not every show's site is set up the same way, so you need to adapt to each if you choose to stray from the main Soundtrack page. There's a lot to sift through and it may take awhile to find your new favorite song, but around these parts, that's not necessarily always a bad thing.

The Network: NBC
The Site: NBC Featured Music
The 411: As a sort of afterthought, NBC has decided it should let you know what songs are sometimes playing in the background of some shows.
Some Artists You'll Find: A little bit of everything, from Avril Lavigne to Janelle Monae.
Pros: You can listen to short clips of everything that's available for purchase! (But then again, clicking on "buy" directs you to iTunes, where you can also listen to short clips of music available for purchase.)
Cons: It's difficult to locate. We found the site easier via Google before figuring out how to get to the page from NBC.com. (To save you the trouble: scroll over the "Extras" option on the main menu, which leads to a drop-down menu with a link to check out music.) And from there, it's very hard to find anything specific. The "featured music" isn't organized by artist, genre or show.

The Network: VH1
The Site(s): Music Page and Shows Page
The 411: VH1 has some serious music programming and a fair share of completely unrelated reality shows. It seems that the network would like to keep the two separate.
Some Artists You'll Find: Going to the All Music tab brings up an overwhelming A-Z of musicians, and you can still find the You Oughta Know artists that spice up the network's commercial breaks. You can find VH1-affiliated artists, like Brooke Hogan, elsewhere on the site.
Pros: The separation between TV and music is actually a little refreshing, and there is plenty to sift through and discover on the Music Page.
Cons:  It's not one-stop shopping, which will disappoint some. Also, a lot of the music that is featured on the Shows Page is a little, well, questionable in quality.

The Winner: Clearly, none of these sites are perfect, and music-specific sites like Pandora or MySpace are more user-friendly. But when it comes down to it, MTV walks away with the trophy, even if just barely. We have to knock it a bit for some of the featured tracks (and give a little shout-out to ABC and The CW for most of its selections), but the site really does do the best job of bringing new tunes to its on-air and online audiences.