Structure and Ownership of different media sectors

Terminology- 

 

Convergence– Two or more types of media coming together.Collaborations between consumer online services and broadcast media, like MSNBC, have brought the Internet to television and vice versa.
Concentration of media ownership- This is an on going process which sees a smaller amount of companies owning most media outlets.

Cross media ownership- A company producing at least two different types of media is a form of cross media ownership.

Conglomerate- A large company owning and controlling a few smaller companies. Walt Disney is an example of conglomerate. Walt Disney Pictures, as well as Pixar, and the Entertainment Sports and Programming Network, otherwise known as ESPN. Its ownership of Marvel Comics puts it head to head with Time Warner in the battle of super-hero motion pictures, which it won in 2012 as “The Avengers” grossed over $1 billion in box offices. Disney also has a 50% stake in the A&E Networks.

Subsidiary- smaller companies that are owned by large companies are called Subsidiary. In this spider diagram you can see which companies are subsidiary as they are owned by larger companies such as Coca Cola or Nestle.

Independent And Blockbuster Films

A blockbuster film usually has a massive budget and income. They are produced by big companies such a Disney and are mostly Hollywood produced. They are shown in cinemas first then released onto DVD. An example of a blockbuster film is Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park was produced by the company universal which is a massive film company that has also produced films such as ET, The Mummy and Fast and Furious. They had a really clever idea for the promotion of this film before the film the were released they didn’t show anyone the dinosaurs they aren’t even in trailer completely – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bim7RtKXv90 this is because when the audience were coming into the cinemas to watch the films they would have no idea what to expect and would therefore be more impressed by the dinosaurs. It would also encourage people to come and see the film as they are going to be more intrigued by the dinosaurs if the only way they can see them is by going to see the film.

An independent film, sometimes known as an indie film is a production that has created either mainly or completely outside a mainstream film studio. They have a much smaller budget and team compared to a blockbuster film.

Pulp fiction is one of my favourite films and i personally think it is the best independent film made. It forever changed Hollywood and was part of a cultural movement. It went from an $8 million picture to a $100 million box office success when it hit theatres 20 years ago.Bob and Harvey Weinstein had a touch for finding young people and turning their film ideas into masterpieces which was important as at that time things like Netflix didn’t exist so it was the only way indie films could get a wide audience. The Weinstein Company still puts out incredible films, including Tarantino’s.
The appeal to this film was mainly to do with the cast, it starred Bruce Willis, John Travolta, and Eric Stoltz. The other actors Uma Thurman and Samuel L. Jackson were quite unheard of before Pulp Fiction. Nowadays stars are happy to appear in independent films hoping to find themselves in the next Pulp Fiction.

I think that the main difference between Blockbuster and Independent films is the budget making them for example Jurassic Park is full of special effects and technology to create things such as the dinosaurs in the films where as Pulp Fiction doesn’t have anything like that. Even though an independent film has a smaller budget i think it can still be just as good as a blockbuster film if it has a good story line, director and actors.

Private Ownership

Private Ownership is a situation when a company is owned by Private shareholders.
TV has become one of the most influential forms of popular media with 98% of households owning a TV and over half of these have 2. TV is split into 2 different ownership’s private and public.
The public ownership is the British Broadcasting Cooperation (BBC) which is funded by the government to meet to public’s wants for example people can write to the BBC with complaints and feedback and the BBC will make changes in order to keep their audience happy. Also if a show isn’t receiving many views they will remove it of the channel and for more popular series they may add another series when it has finished. Because it’s paid for by the public there’s no ad break during shows as they do not need to use advertisements to fund the channel.

The advantage of Public ownership is that as the public gives feedback it runs shows that they want to see which also means there are a wide range and variety of the shows being run on the BBC. The disadvantage are that more people are willing to pay for a subscription to Virgin or Sky etc. and get a TV license that shows more than just the BBC.
A big advantage of private ownership is that it runs of ad funds, many products are desperate to have an advertisement on TV as it is such a popular media form they know lots of people will see it and the TV is very influential. They charge more for ads to be shown during popular shows and times of the day which means the channel will have more money to fund new shows. The disadvantage of private ownership is that because BBC is a public owner they are able to use the public’s opinions and feedback for new shows whereas channels like MTV may come up with an idea that they like but not many of the public may enjoy it.

FUNDING

Advertising is one of the biggest sources of income for media.Products and companies pay channels to show their advertisements between show’s. However the products being advertised depends on the show and channel you are watching as they try and aim them at the audience for that particular show or channel. Also the more popular shows charge more for adverts to be shown during them for example it would cost more to have your advert shown on a show such as game of thrones than something on daytime TV.

 

First Post

I have started this blog as a part of my creative media course. I am going to use it as a way of displaying my findings on private ownership, public service media, multinationals, conglomerates, voluntary, financial, customers, franchise, sources of income, competition and trends as they are all key areas of the industry. I will mainly be looking at the TV and film sectors of the media industry as in class we have already looked at the BBFC and the age rating of film so it is more relevant to our studies.