THE MEDIA INDUSTRY

In this report, I will be covering many different subjects to
do with the media industry. This will help anybody interested in careers for a
media sector. This report will contain information about different types of media
ownerships, as well as ethical issues involved in these. This is to fully give
you knowledge of what is contained within the media industry.

PRIVATE OWNERSHIP

A privately-owned company is funded primarily through advertisement.
For example, ITV is a private ownership and unlike BBC which is public service
company, they have adverts in between their broadcasts allowing them to make
revenue to continue funding more shows. Another private owned company is
YouTube, which is a video broadcasting website which allows content creators to
upload and share their own videos to generate views, and eventually when having
enough of a following, money. The way that the content creators and YouTube
make their money is through ad-revenue, which they will gain when they have
earned a certain amount of ‘subscribers’ and views. The way this is done is
through a system called ‘Monetisation’. When a video on YouTube is ‘Monetised’,
Adverts will be shown throughout the video allowing both the creator and
YouTube to make money, so much money in fact that a lot of ‘YouTubers’ have
been able to use it as a full-time job. Having a privately-owned company can
have a lot of advantages, as some companies who want their products advertised
are willing to pay a lot of money to get it done. A disadvantage of private
ownership is that what is produced might not be exactly what the audience want,
whereas for companies such as the BBC, they research what the audience want
before producing a show, possible taking more of the audience’s interest.
Commercial broadcasting, also known as private broadcasting once again uses
advertisement to fund their broadcasts. These can often be the case with
Podcasts as it allows the public to create their own broadcasts and earn
revenue from doing so. However, this would only be the case for large podcasts
which would gain the interest of companies who would want to invest, smaller
podcasts would be independently owned meaning the fund themselves without the
help of advertising or the government.

PUBLIC SERVICE MEDIA

A public service company is purely funded through the government,
which everyone who uses a TV pays for with a ‘TV License’. A public service
company must listen to what the audience want. If the public complain, then
they will have to make changes to give the consumers what they want, and if a
show doesn’t get many views, then it will be cancelled. One of the biggest
examples of a public ownership is the BBC. The BBC is funded by the government
purely to inform, educate and to entertain, giving the audience exactly what
they want rather than what they want to create. This is an advantage for the
audience as the BBC do a lot of research into what the audience wants for all
ages, genders, sexualities and religions. A disadvantage of this is that a lot
of people don’t want to have to pay for a TV license, and would much rather
watch purely on demand, or sign up to other services such as Sky which doesn’t
only fund one channel. As well as TV, the BBC are also very well known for
their radio stations which is very interactive with the audience and like on
the TV, they are always making sure that they are playing what the audience
want to hear.

MULTINATIONALS

A
multinational company is a business which is distributed in multiple countries
around the world. And example of multinational TV company is Comcast, which is
the largest broadcasting and cable TV company in the world by revenue, and
broadcasts to millions of homes all around the globe. Most film companies are
also multinational, this is to allow the creators of the film to gain the very
most out of the movie and as well as that there is no reason for it not to be
shared. This is especially the case as Hollywood, where most of the biggest
films are created is only in one country. A reason for a movie not to be shared
among a country is when the countries believe the movie will cause offence or
is too explicit for their population. For example, if a movie was to contain a
Nazi symbol along with relative content, the movie would most likely be banned
from being broadcasted in Germany. All this information is the same for
Animations and Video games. They too are shared among all countries, as there
is no reason not to be unless the country doesn’t want it being distributed
there. An example of a video game being banned in another country is the game
‘Wolfenstein’ a franchise about the protagonist who you play fighting the Nazi
powers and is set in a world in which the Nazis won the first world war. This
was banned in Germany for Nazi references.

CONGLOMERATE

A media conglomerate is a large
company who own several other smaller companies who distribute certain forms of
media to consumers. Viacom is an example of a conglomerate company, they own
multiple different television channels such as MTV, Nickelodeon, Global
Entertainment Group, CMT, Comedy Central, BET Networks, Logo TV and many more.

DIVERCIFICATION

Diversification in the media is
when a company decides to branch out into different media sectors, for example
a company does television broadcasting branching out in to radio broadcasting
or internet streaming, this is diversification as the company is diversifying
what they do, creating a more diverse company. An example of a company which
has diversified is most newspaper companies such as the Guardian Media Group
which originally developed newspapers but has since started producing online
new content and created radio stations on which they can share some of the
stories and events covered in their newspaper but in a much faster time frame.
Film companies can also be multinational, however on a slightly smaller scale,
for example they can create lots of completely different types of movies, and
the same goes for animation businesses.

VERTICAL INTEGRATION

Vertical integration is when a
media company (conglomerates) owns several companies at different stages of
production. Warner Bros is owned by Time Warner, which is a huge multinational
media conglomerate. Harry Potter, a huge movie franchise, is a good example of
how Warner Bros has used vertical integration to increase the potential
earnings from productions. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two was
created by Warner Bros pictures, in association with Heyday Films. It was then
distributed by Warner Bros Distribution.

HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION

ETHICAL
ISSUES

In the
media industry, for all sectors, there is always forms of ethical issues that
must be worked around. These include offensive content, racism, sexism etc.
Ethical issues aren’t bad in a legal way, it is not illegal to distribute a
piece of work whether it be a film or game or a book that contains potentially
offensive content. However, it can affect the creator of this product or the
popularity of the work. One example is with YouTube, when it had first become
popular years ago, any ethical issues were expectable, but now, content
creators are being affected as if their content does contain stuff that is not
appropriate to some audiences, then it will be what is called ‘demonetised’.
When a video is demonetised, the creator cannot gain any money from the video,
and no advertisements will be contained within it.

 Television is similar. If a program contains
graphic or offensive content that may cause offence, other companies may not
want their products being advertised or not want to sponsor the program.
Another issue often involved in TV shows such as documentaries or news reports
are privacy. Often, a show will show something or tell something that may be
private or personal information about someone, something they may not have
wanted the world to know. If this does happen, the subject of the leaked
information can sue as they did not give permission for it to be broadcasted
and this can often bring down a shows reputation.

 For radio, copyright is often a large ethical
issue. This is because some artists may not want their music broadcasted

It is
believed that kids watching violent action movies can be brainwashed by them
into committing crime themselves and hurting or bullying others. This can often
be a big issue as it is sometimes the parents first thought when their child
acts in a violent way a large percentage of children watch extremely violent
films. These movies tend to leave psychological scars on a child. Child-based
movies and cartoons do influence the thinking and behaviours of millions of
21st century children.

 For video games, the impact it is thought to
have on children is also a very large problem, parents and other adults believe
that the mass amount of violence in video games is affecting children and
causing more bullying and other forms of violence. Another ethical issue in
video games is when a game has too much explicit or offensive content, this can
cause people to dislike the game or possibly have a biased opinion on any other
games by that company.