Placing Music in Films & TV shows has become one of the most important jobs at Record Companies and Music Publishers. Why ?? As record sales have dropped over the past few years, industry executives have looked to replace that lost income. Not only is Film/TV music placement lucrative, it also serves the dual purpose of promoting an artist or their latest release.
So, competition is high. Independent artists though, do have a number of advantages over large companies. For example, they can often agree contractual and payment terms much quicker than the multinational music companies (who are infamous for their turtle-like speed). An independent artist also has virtually no overheads compared to a large company and would therefore be perfectly happy accepting a few thousand dollars for one use of their song; whereas a deal of that size is simply not profitable for a major company.
The people in charge of choosing music for Film & TV are known as 'Music Supervisors' and have a similar role to A&R people. Consequently the same rules apply as to how you come to the attention of Music Supervisors.