Understanding media Assignment

Understanding structure and ownership in the creative media sector

This assignment is about finding out the different structure and ownerships in the media sector.

Creative media sectors: 

• Television
• Radio
• Film
• Animation
• Interactive media
• Computer games
• Publishing
• Press
• Photo-imaging
• Advertising 
• Marketing

Television

Television in the media industry has lots of competition that have employed over 50,000 people. I know this as I looked it up on Wiki. Television broadcasts many different types of TV programmes and films. In the UK, TV is dominated by a few broadcasters. The broadcasters are:

• BBC - Public Company (A company that has sold a portion of itself to the public), funded by the TV license. (The TV license is paid by the public weekly, monthly or annually) 

• ITV - Private Company (Usually owned by the founder), 60% owned by ITV PLC (Public limited company), also owned by STV Group PLC (Scotland) and UTV (Northern Ireland)

• Channel 4 - Private Company, funded by advertising.

• Channel 5 - Private Company, Owned by the Northern & Shell (Which is owned by Richard Desmond)

      1. An advantage of a Private Company is that they don't have to answer to stakeholders. They also don't have to pay tax. The disadvantage is that they cant use the public capital (which is money that is needed to produce goods or services) and must then turn to a private funding. This would make the cost of the capital more and may limit their expansion of the company.



      2. Advantages of a Public Company is that they are allowed to change the financial markets by selling stock for cash. They would use this money to expand or produce new projects for the company to maybe lead off to something else to make more money and for the business to maybe succeed in something else leading it to have a good reputation.
   
      3. Public Limited Company is a company whose securities are traded on a stock exchange and can be bought by anyone. A Public Company are required by law to publish their complete and financial position so that investors can determine how much the company is worth of it stock.

Radio

Radio is one of the oldest forms of media. Radio transmits sound-based media to car radios and TV. As radios have been around for a long time it is dying out. This is because you can now listen to it on the TV and online as it has become digital. Most people only listen to the radio when they are in their cars. Example of different section of radios:

• BBC Radio 1 - Publicly funded Radio, Taxpayer funded

• Metro Radio - Commercial Radio, Advert funded

• Hospital Radio Hillingdon - National Lottery funded, 24 hour broadcasting. Hospital Radio - Community and Voluntary Radio.  

TFM radio is a commercial radio station that's only played in the North East. Bauer Radio are the owners of TFM radios.  TFM radio makes its money by their advertising and they also make their money by selling things on their website. They get people to buy a deal, which is a voucher they than receiver via email or SMS. They get this off their website that they can then use for family day out or food and drink, going out for a meal. They them ask you to share with other people so then it gets passed around and more people will know. Possibly other people will get involved and they would earn more money.     

Film

In film its not so much having competition, its more like how well known it is. Also the film industry is one of the largest and profitable sectors in the media industry. For example 20th Century FOX is a well known production team. Also Walt Disney, Lucasfilm, DreamWorks, Blue Sky studio, Universal studios, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros Marvel studios. These are some of the more popular Film productions around. The multimillion pound companies tend to produce the big blockbuster films as they have bigger budgets to produce and market the films. If one of the film production companies bought a new film out, you would know pretty much what the film would be like.

• Smaller film companies such as Pinewood Studios (a small British film company). Films produced by the small studios tend to be cult-films (Unpopular with the audience and often ironically can be enjoyed). Often these films can become successful, popular films.

•  Walt Disney employs 62,000 people, which makes it the largest singe site employer in the country. I know this as it mentions this on Wiki.  

•   In 2011 Walt Disney purchased Lucasfilm for $4 billion. This also includes the Star Wars franchise. 
• They have a horizontal integration as they have bought into something that they already specialize in. They both do things that are related to movies. As they already have experience in this business there shouldn't be any problems.   
• Advantages is that there is reduced costs for big companies as they have more purchasing power and produce products at a reduced costs. Another advantage of cross media ownership is that they have a wider distribution as the markets bigger into which the media text can be distributed are increased - bigger audience = bigger profit.
•  A disadvantages is branding as media text becomes part of a brand and they have the possibility of losing their individual status. The longstanding partnership with Hearst Corporation, which owns additional TV stations, newspaper, magazine, magazine and stakes in several Disney television ventures. Disney channel, a&e and Lifetime, approx. 30 radio stations, music, video games and book publishing companies. 

Pinewood studios (Multinational)

Pinewood Studios is a multinational  film studio and television studio company. 

Pinewood studios is well known for James Bond, Superman and Star wars Trilogy. The studios is where they filmed James Bond, "The spy who loved me."

Unique Services:

They have an underwater tank that they can film in. This is unique to their company. 800,000 gallon exterior tank. 

Production Services (The company has expanded to):

• UK
• Malaysia
• Dominican Republic
• Canada
• Georgia, USA 
• Ireland

They are a funded company. Pinewood Pictures is the investment and content-owning division Pinewood Group. As well as offering direct equity investment, Pinewood Pictures acts as fund advisor t both The Isle of Man Media Development fund £25m and the Welsh Government Media investment budget £30m. 

In the film industry there are the following stages:

• Development
• Pre-Production
• Production
• Post production
• Distribution

Exhibition

Universal studios made a film Jurassic world. As Jurassic park is produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, he is also the founder of one of the private companies are Amblin Entertainment. Another production company involved with is Legendary Entertainment. It took a decade for Jurassic world to come out of development. This was because of script rewrites which was in 2005. This then got pushed to 2014 but didn't get released until 2015. The Pre production of the film.
The creative side of the film got passed round a couple of time. It went to Joe Johnson. He didn't want to be the director for the film so instead he directed Captain America.The financing for the film was with the budget $150 million dollars. The posters, trailers and the press would of earn't some money for the film production as most people would of been a fan when Jurassic Park came out in 1993. The box office costing $652,270,625. The opening weekend was $208,806,270.

Animation

These media sector all rely on animation:

• TV (CBBC) CBBC make their money by the BBC. 
• Film (Disney)
• Video Games (Bioware) Subidiary to Electronic arts. 
• Interactive Media (Facebook, Twitter)
• Adverts 
• Marketing

TV, adverts and film use animation as a technique for producing shows, advert and films. They also use animation as a special effect. Video games are based on animation that create a virtual world for players to play about in.
The main animation companies are:

• DreamWorks (Owned by Paramount)
• Pixar (Owned by Disney)
• Aardman (Smaller based company that also have much success)

Interactive media

Interactive media are websites that you can interact on such as:

• Facebook (1,374,000,000)(Public)
• Twitter (289,000,000)(Public)
• YouTube (Over billion users)(Subsidiary)
• Instagram (302,000,000)(Subsidiary)
• Tumblr (237,000,000)(Subsidiary)
• Google (347,000,000)(Subsidiary)

Facebook and YouTube are the most popular. As interactive media is becoming an everyday thing with people, it seems to be growing considerably. This is why it employs over 34,00 people with companies worth billions of pounds. People communicate through Facebook and Twitter and now that YouTube is now accessible on smartphones these interactive medias are popular than ever. On an online survey it added that 67% of people go on social networking sites for staying in touch with current friends. At the bottom of the list with 3%, is people finding potential romantic or dating partners.

Computer games

In recent years gaming has become a popular thing. People using Twitch playing recent selling games online so the people watching can comment or like. They also use webcam on this app which records the game, their faces and their voices so its a live showing of the game being played by that person. There are also YouTubers making gaming channels to a show them playing the online or new selling games. On this channel they would make walk-through that would last roughly 30 minutes each episode. You can make money on both being streaming their content they've made.
Examples of the five biggest video game companies are:

• Activision (Subsidiary)

Subsidiaries:

1. Beenox
2. Demonware
3. Fun Labs
4. Infinity Ward
5. Raven Software
6. Sierra Entertainment
7. High Moon Studios
8. FreeStyleGames
9. Sledgehammer Games
10. Toys for Bob

• Electronic Arts (Public Company): In 2015 they had 8,400 employers. They make the most popular games which most people buy such as:

1. FIFA series 
2. Battlefield series 
3. Simcity series 
4. The Sims series
5. Stars Wars series
6. Rock Band series

The revenue is going up every year. In 2015 is was $4.515 billion. Electronic Arts also have subsidiaries:

1. Ghost Games
2. Popcap 
3. The Sims Studio
4. Visceral Games
5. EA Dice 

• Nintendo (Kabushiki Gaisha): In 2013 they had 5,080 employees but in 2014 they had 5,213. There is now more competition with other companies and other companies are bringing out new products, whereas Nintendo aren't that popular as they not bringing out new consoles like others. Nintendo is known for the Gameboy, Wii etc. The revenue and profits are dropping year by year. 

Subsidiaries

1. 1-UP Studio
2. Nintendo Network Service
3. Nd Cube
4. Nintendo Technology Development
5. Nintendo Software Technology
6. Retro Studios
7. Nintendo European Research & Development
8. Monolith Soft
9. Database
10. iQue

• Sony (Conglomerate): In 2015 they have 131,700 employees.

1. An advantage of a Conglomerate company is that if the company has excess cash but have no way of growth in the same industry; a company outside the industry is better off with that money as they would benefit with it, whereas the company with the excess cash would just be keeping the cash for no reason. Another advantages of conglomerates is that it can increase the customers as the other companies can cross sell its products to the new customers which could lead to an increase in sales of it main products leading to higher profits for the company. 
2. Disadvantages of a Conglomerate company is that merging to a company is that the company wouldn't have any experience about that industry it is in. There could be chances of mismanagement and overpricing that target company. Another disadvantages is that the company shifting its focus from its core business which could turn results from the companies performing poorly in areas. This usually happens when you shift your focus to the strong business and your also venturing into that business that you do not have any experience in.     

• Capcom (Public): In 2014 they have 2,601 employees. Their revenue in 2014 was $239.6 billion. Capcom doesn't have any subsidiaries but there is disadvantages to that. 

1. Having subsidiaries will help to reduce production costs. Capcom won't have any help from that as they don't have any.

Advantages:

1. It wouldn't be that expensive as they wouldn't have to pay high taxes.

Publishing

Publishing is producing and distributing text-based media.

• Newspaper (The Sun) They make their money by promotion and people buying their products
•  Magazines (OK) OK magazine make their money by promotion and people buying their magazine. They also have product placement with Channel 5 as Channel 5 want to integrate with media brands.   
• Online Journals (Sage) By the amount of views and advertising they would receive the money from that.
• Books (Random house) Random house are a well known brand of book publishers. They mostly do children books which are popular. They get their money by selling the books and the people want they to publish their books. As they are well known they would be more reliable.
• Photos
• Posters (Advert/Marketing) Adverts are shown during the breaks of TV programs. They are also shown in magazine and newspapers. Having great adverting will make the business more successful and the money they use on advertising would be worth it. They make the money by the channels playing there advert. 
• Mailing Lists

Co & Bear Productions is a British Limited company based in London. They are a book publisher who publish kids books mostly. For example The littlest Bear.

Press

A way of delivering news to the general public. This includes both broadcasted news. Radio and TV or printed news (Newspaper and Magazine). Press reports are written by journalists for different news companies:

News:

• BBC News BBC make their money by TV licenses. It doesn't take money from shareholders. They also sell their programs to other broadcasters.
• ITV News
• Sky News

Newspaper:

• The Daily Telegraph
• The Guardian
• The Daily Mail

Photo-Imaging

This sector employs 43,100 people in the UK. The employers would use the Adobe systems as they have the best tools and the best quality results at the end. Two thirds are self employed free lance people who just want to earn a bit more money for themselves.
An example of photo imaging is Instagram. They are a private sector company and are under the development and ownership of Facebook.
Although Adobe is the biggest company in the sector and owns many products such as Photoshop, illustrator and many other products. They are the best used products on the market and that's why most people use them the most. Plus it is the most trusted brand.

Advertising

Advertising is a way of persuading or advising people about a product or service. There is also public service adverts which advertise useful information usually about health.
Different places you can find advertise:

• Billboards/Posters or on the side of buildings.
• Newspapers/Magazines
• Online
• TV

Marketing 

Marketing is a way of communicating with potential customers about the value of a product or service. In marketing there are 4 P's they use as it ends with a good result. Its also covers most of basics of the product or services.

In the gaming industry these days they like to bring out the old games either by remaking them or just making it playable on that particular device. Ever since this has been happening they gaming industry has been growing incredibly.
Now they are integrating games into phones such as angry birds and flappy birds. You can now get them out the store app off your phone to play on your mobile on the move. You can also play the games on Facebook and can invite friends on them now to play along with encourages more people to play. This has been marketed correctly by thinking of the possibilities with the different options they come up with. Clever that you can now access it through Facebook so you can keep track on what's happening.