Understanding Structure And Ownership In The Creative Media Sector

Understanding Structure and ownership in the creative media sector 


The creative media sector is divided into nine industries; film, TV, radio, publishing, advertising and marketing, animation, interactive media, games and photo imaging.

The film industry is owned mainly by six conglomerates known as 'the big six.' The big six are Time Warner, The Walt Disney Company, Compact, Sony, 21st Century Fox and Viacom. An advantage of conglomerate ownership is that more money can be funded to a film allowing for better actors, CGI etc. There are however disadvantages to conglomerate ownership such  as,  a lack of innovative ideas as conglomerates will stay with market research to make films that appeal to the masses and will make the most money. The film industry has a need to generate huge amounts of income to make a profit on High budget films.  A strong source of income for the film industry is merchandise. A good example of a film which gained a huge amount of income from merchandise was the Walt Disney film Frozen. The film was not only a huge box office success but also made huge amounts of money from merchandise alone. There are several types of ownership; these include private and public, conglomerates,  independents, cross media ownerships, mergers and takeovers. 

A private ownership is a company that is owned by one single person or alternatively a group of several people. In private ownership most if not all funding is made through advertising. It is common that most privately owned channels will be aimed at one specific audience. An example of a channel in private ownership which is targeted at a specific audience is MTV which is targeted at young people usually between the ages of 16 - 25. Due to the specific audience targeting advertisements on such channels are different to adverts shown on other channels with a broader targeted audience such as BBC 1, which will show a broad range of adverts to accommodate for everyone within their targeted audience. An advantage of private ownership is that it runs entirely from funds raised from advertising, and there are vast amounts of companies wanting to advertise. However companies in private ownership do not have the funds to do beforehand research into a show to determine if it will be popular. This is very disadvantageous as a privately owned company that is looking into funding a particular show would have to go on instinct alone rather than base their decision on research. This means that when a privately owned company decides to fun a show they take the risk that the show may turn out to be a 'flop'

A public company is a company financed by a TV licence such as the BBC, which is funded by the government. Since the BBC is government run they have to provide content that is appropriate for everyone and have to listen to feedback from the public. Since the BBC is funded by the public there is no need for them to have advertisement breaks during a programme. Since the BBC is funded by the license fee paid for by the public they will cancel any shows that receive a low number of views.

A conglomeration is a company that owns several smaller companies.  An example of a conglomerate is Time Warner which owns Warner Bros and several other companies.

An independent is a producer of media that is not controlled by the government or a media corporation.  They make media independently without assistance from larger companies.  They are usually owned by a group of people or one individual. Since they are independent and receive no funding from larger companies independent companies have to find other ways to fund their own programmes, this is usually through advertisements.

Cross media ownership is when a single company owns mroe than one single format of media such as film, TV and radio. This is very useful to companies as it widens their audience, by using different media formats they open up to new audiences. However cross media ownership is only useful to large companies who can afford to diversify into different formats. An advantage to cross media ownership is that a company can produce different media at lower costs, this means they can use the reduction in costs to increase profit margins. Cross media ownership also leads to more security, if a company is spread into multiple formats they are prepared for a failure, if one market fails such as radio, then they can focus on other formats such as TV and Publishing. A disadvantage of cross media ownership is that the media is that the media has a lot of power and the ability to persuade, by having one company control various formats it makes it harder to escape their bias opinions. This could however be an advantage for the company if it increases the support of a political part they favour.

A merger is when two smaller companies join together to become one larger company this is usually done as each company has something  the other does not and by merging together they can combine their assets to make a larger profit. An advantage of merging is the combined assets of both previous companies being brought together for the new 'merged' company to use.

A takeover is when one media company buys out another company and gains their assets to use as their own.  This is usually done when a smaller company has something a larger company wants.  The larger company will then buy out the smaller one to make more profit.An advantage to a takeover is that the larger company will gain the assets of the smaller company and the smaller company will be paid for selling the company. Takeovers are however one sided and usually disadvantageous for the smaller company as a smaller company isn't in a position to refuse an offer from a much larger company. Especially when the bigger company can afford to pay a lot for the other.

The TV industry is one of the creative media sector largest industries.  The main focus of TV is to produce higher quality programs for broadcasting in a channels selected country.  The TV sector us divided into many different companies who control different channels.  Some of the biggest companies in control of parts of the TV industry are NBC, CBS, Fox, HBO and Disney.  All of these companies are conglomeration and own various smaller companies which own TV channels. Income for the TV industry is generated both through the TV licence and advertising during ad breaks.  Viewer demographics are important to the generating of income for TV as the higher the viewer ratings the more a potential advertiser can be charged to advertise during a more popular show. A disadvantage of the conglomerate ownership is that the information given on programmes such as the news are biased as they are owned by one person who likely has a political agenda. Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corporation has right wing views and owns the cross media conglomeration. His business owns smaller companies in TV, film and publishing. This means the information is likely biased and promotes his right wing views.

Radio is widely varied in terms of ownership for instance there is the BBC which  is government owned and receives funding from a licence fee paid by the public.  The BBC is however not the only company in ownership of the radio industry.  Ownership of radio can range from large cross media conglomerations to small independent radio.  Independent radio companies are able to broadcast their own opinions and political views without worrying about censorship. The lack of censorship however can also have the opposite effect like the 'sachsgate' scandal.  Sachsgate was a radio interview with Russel Brand and Jonathan Ross.  They were supposed to interview Andrew Sachs on the show but he did not turn up so they left him several messages with can be deemed offensive by some people. This is because throughout the course of the show they insulted his career and made personal remarks pertaining to his grand-daughter which is a gross violation of family confidentiality. At the time of airing the show received very few complaints however after the daily mail published an article about the show he number of complaints increased substantially.  This could either be because people were previously unaware of the incident or the public possesses a sheep like attitude and are eager to jump on the bandwagon. Nevertheless this incident raised serious questions about the censorship as the show breached several serious censorship rules.  The issues of censorship are based on the ethical ideals of the public. These ethics are formed bad on a person's experiences such as their beliefs, childhood, gender, sexuality, race and upbringing. Smother disadvantage of independent radio companies is that they have very little funding since they are not backed by major corporations and cannot afford to invite celebrities or important figures in for interviews. Since the public is not charged for listening to terrestrial radio stations money is made through advertisements and special event days held.

The publishing industry is dominated by large cross media conglomerations such as News Corporation. News Corporation controls a large amount of the newspapers available this means that their ideologies are being promoted relentlessly. Some of the companies owned by News Corporation include: The New York post, The Sun and The Times. The publishing industry makes profit through advertising in pages of newspapers and magazines, usually entire pages will be dedicated to a product.

The advertising and marketing industry is frequently used in association with other industries such as film, TV.  One of the companies in control of the advertising and marketing industry is the Interpublic Group Of Companies, one of three large conglomerations in control of the advertising industry. The advertising and marketing industry is very important in the creative media secotr. This is because many companies recieve their funding through advertisements run during breaks in programming, without the advertising and marketing industry these companies would not be able to advertise and would recieve little or no funding, which would mean that they could not afford to produce media any longer.

The animation industry is one of the smallest parts of the creative media sector.  Animated content is included in TV, films and games. It can be divided into several different kinds; 2D traditional, 2D computer generated, 3D computer generated and stop frame. In the animation industry there are not usually advertisements so they are often funded by the creator or from money from anither source such as the National Lottery or an animation company. Animation is relatively commonplace on TV especially as childrens programmes.

The interactive media industry is a sector specialising in producing computer systems that respond to a users actions. They do this by showing content such as; video, audio, animation, graphics etc. The interactive media industry is the largest sector in the audio/visual industry, with the Internet being a part of this sector. Thios industry is also funded by creators or in the case of a large company a budget will be given to the creators and that will be their funding.

The games industry is considerably large and is run by major conglomerations.  There are also a large amount of independent game producers who will make games for a low budget. A significantly large gaming conglomeration is Electronic Arts. EA started as a privately owned company but gradually became more successful until it began to takeover other companies. It is now one of the largest gaming conglomerations in the world.. In the case of gaming the company producing a game will be given a budget to make the game with. The games industy is large and highly profitable industry, because of this there are new games being produced all the time, from low budget games to high budget games.

The photo imaging industry is a very diverse industry with many independent companies and some larger companies. The photo imaging industry has various aspects involved such as; photo restoration, airbrushing etc. The industry recieves it's funding by the companies producing the content, this is because they recieve no funding from a TV license or advertising.