Ownership of Television Broadcasting

Ownership of Television Broadcasting:

Public Service Broadcasting (PSB):

When broadcasting was first established in the UK in the 1920s (radio) the government looked across to the US system which was funded commercially.  They felt that this system created low quality output which pandered to vulgar, sensationalised tastses.  The UK government wanted something thaqt would 'inform' and 'educate' as well as merely entertain.So the BBC was born, as a radio broadcaster at first and then a TV broadcaster in 1936. The government had to figure out how to fund the BBC. Firstly they dismissed doing commercial funding, meaning getting money from advertisements as they didn't want to do it like America did it and they also though it was vulgar

entertainment. They were going to try and do government funding as the PSB is a government approved organisation, but soon realized if they were to do that they might be excused of propaganda. So they finally decided on license funding, to which people would have to buy a license in order to be able to watch the BBC, which is usually paid through subscription with a company like Sky. The first Director General for the BBC, called John Reith said that "the BBC is a public service not a public exploitation", meaning that the BBC does not use advertisement to fund and exploit their popularity either for it and that is also why later on the PBS adopted to slogan to which they follow "Inform, Educate and entertain" and that is one of the reasons why the BBC must have educational, kid friendly and religious programs on there and in all and all the the public service serves the audience.  Now, in the UK, other channels are also regulated with some reference to the concenpt of PSB, via OFCOM who require ITV for example to have a certain number of hours of local programming, news etc.

Commercial Broadcasting:

For what the PSB for was "vulgar" entertainment, we move to other side of the spectrum in a sense, with commercial broadcasting which is when channels use advertisements to help fund them and allow them to keep and expand their operations by either creating more channels or more programs, but unlike PSB and the BBC that serves their audience, instead commercial ran channels is which that they sell their audience to advertisement agencies and their products. An example of this is the channel ITV which was first introduced in 1955, to which it was the first commercial broadcaster in the UK, but like the BBC the government still required that ITV have educational, kid friendly and religious programs and in return they had the right to broadcast they programs on TV. Another
commercial funded provider is the most popular thing that almost every home has which is free view and although it has "free" in its name it is actually funded by advertisements. Another funding type that is linked to commercial broadcasting is subscription funding to which you either pay a annually or most commonly month to which you get access to a wide range of things, either it be television channels or movies. An example of this is Sky which you pay monthly for a certain package which gives you access to a wide range of channels and depending on the package you got you will also get exclusive channels for just sky customers and a thing about sky is that the customers pay sky for their service in which they then sell us to the advertisements of the channel they provide. 

Corporate and Private Ownership:

Within the television industry there are two main types of ownership in it, Private and corporate, Corporate is owned publicly and to get the company to be public can be quite an expensive task, but a corporation can be either public or privately owned and example is the BBC which is publicly owned
and an example of a private owned corporation is ITV. Privately owned companies exist and rely on their own in order to be able to make money for themselves and shareholders. 

Global Companies:

In the world of media there aren't that many single companies anymore as most of them have either expand into multiply or a high corporation has bought and those companies don't only just work in one location or the country they set up to company in but reach and work out through out the entire world. An example of that company is one called News Corporation, News corporation is one of the most richest and influential in the world owning sub-companies all over the world, for instance in the UK, the News Corporation owns most of the major news papers in the UK, like the Sun and the

Times and also own some major television programs like FOX TV and the Simpsons also. Another global media giant is quite well known which is Disney, Disney own quite a lot of companies around the world like News Corporation, but more of the television side, like owning Marvel which makes a ton of money for the movies that come out and it also owns the ABC network and the ESPN, so it owns two popular channels and are able to make quite a profit off it. 

Concentration of Ownership:

When global media giants make money and they make a lot of money within all the companies they own it can create some conflict in who gets a certain amount of the money so the media giants tend to concentrate their money or shares in fewer and fewer companies as they can in order to counter the

conflict. In fact in most of the world only 5 companies own 90% of the global media.

With the corporation reducing their conflict by concentrating their money, but conflict started to increase as when the internet started to become more popular source of media it make global media giants angry as the internet seems to try and take the media industry from them via allowing people to be able to watch movies and show they have created without a check being sent towards them.

Vertical and Horizontal Integration/Monopolization:

Within the film industry the media giants prosper as they own so many different media companies in order to make more money they already make and they figure out which company is a good buy by something called Vertical Integration as when a film studio has finished filming their project and are ready to be distributed, it will go through the distribution companies and then the cinemas and the  finally to the audience and if one of the sub sectors of this happen to make more money then the original studio, then the film studio will most likely buy to be able to get that income from them and also get the assets of that company as well. Then you have something called horizontal integration

which is like vertical integration, but instead of being the sub sectors of the release process, instead the companies in the same sector will try and buy each other in order to get their income from their production, this could be a film studio buying another film studio in order to create more money, or a distribution or cinema buying each other in order to get the profits or increase the distribution of the product. What some companies might do is also try and run their competitors out of business in all, just to try and increase their market share or make it so they are more willing to sell to them. An example of vertical integration is in with Warner Bros entertainment which is owned by Time Warner and the film they helped produce with heyday films, called " Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows" to which is was mostly filmed in Warner's leavesdon studio. Then the film was then distributed from Warner Brother Pictures Company, to which it was then marketed by several of Time Warner's owned companies like HBO, CNN and another company owned by Time Warner made it so it was advertised on a popular show of Larry King which interview the actors before the red carpet premiere, Time magazine also did the same with adding special features about the Harry Potter film both before and after premiere to make sure people would go see it in the cinema and also buy it when it came out on DVD. The finally after marketing you have the exhibition to which the distribution company, distributed to Time Warner's International cinema chain to be able to show the world the film they have produced to help the succession of Warner Bros Entertainment and also HBO broadcasted the premiere in order to be able make profit from showing off the box office hit and also helped Warner bros integration of Time Warner.

Sources of Funding:

Licence Fee:

With all this companies and corporation make all this money they first also need funding to help support themselves and i shall go through the basics of them. The first one is the license fee which is what the BBC use to fund themselves and this fee means you have to have to buy a certain licence in

order to be able to watch their channels and their programmes within it.

Subscription Funding: 

The next one is subscription funding which is where you either pay monthly or yearly for a certain product which allow you a wide range of media related products, for example you have Sky which was set when satellite were being used for a the service allows a wide range of programs and channels to be views. Another example of subscription funding is a program called Netflix which allows a wide range of films and TV Shows to be viewed after a monthly payment.

One off Payment:

The next type of funding it one off payment, which means that when someone buys something once and doesn't have to a recurring payment, it means they own forever, an example of this is when people buy a DVDs or CDs, once they buy then it then belongs to them.

Pay per view:

The next source of funding is Pay per view, which in the name means you pay once to a certain things only once and then it goes and you will have to wait until next time its on and will have to pay again, in basic terms you buy this product with a time limit that gives you access to the program for that time, this is especially popular in sports event especially in boxing and MMA. An example is the upcoming fight that puts Connor Mcgregor versus Floyd Mayweather and properly be the most watch fight which will make tons of money for the companies that are linked towards it.

Sponsorship Funding:

 Another type of funding is sponsorship, which is a great way of big companies to be able to put their product out there to a bigger audience which could help increase their product's profits because of sponsorship which can be done from sponsoring popular TV shows or if they can sponsor a group of people or an organisation. An example of this is that the well known food goods company "Iceland" sponsorship the yearly high popular show on ITV which is called "I'm a celebrity get me out of here" and that allows "Iceland getting a high viewer count on their products and make the audience want to start shopping at "Iceland" instead of anywhere else. Another example is the fact big companies also sponsor certain things to stay funded in order to get their company noticed like this can be seen in sports like football which you can see the names of different companies which surrounds the stadium which can be seen all the time during the course of the match.

Product Placement:

Another of example of sources of funding within films and television shows is product placement which is when the production team use a certain companies products in the production and sometimes they will have to pay for the rights to use the product and sometimes they don't as the product placement will allow the company product to be seen being used by a possible famous character, which might cause the audience to buy that product, because their favorite character uses that product and they want to be like them. An example is that the in the well known famous British movies known as the "James Bond Franchise"  always has the product placement of using the cars from the car company "Aston Martin" which increased the sales of Aston Martin because of it. 

Advertisement:

One of the most used and popular sources of funding found in the media industry is advertisement which can range from loads of things from television advertisement or posters to celebrity interviews talking about the production. Media advertising agencies do this to increase the hype for product and makes it so their target audience might wanted to pre-order the product and allow the audience to receive funding and this can be done from the television advertising which shows of the product, or through the interviews which allows the stars of the production talk about the product and gets people who are fans of that celebrity to want to go see it because they're innit allowing the possibility of having a higher profit being more and more likely.

Private Capital:

For most films to be made they need funding and sometimes when companies won't give you funding some people do instead and example of this a person called Megan Ellison who has funded loads of films like sausage party which did really well at the box office, or when that doesn't work sometimes the directors will pay for themselves as like did Robert Rodriguez who sold his body to science in order to be able to pay for the film he was making, which was called "El Mariachi" which from a budget of $7,000 to make over 2 million in the box office making the Robert Rodriguez gain fame from it and started to become a famous director.

Crowd Funding:

 Crowd Funding is when a third party help to pay for your idea on a production through websites like Kick starter and go fund me as it will allow people to help them be able to create the product they have set out to try and create for them. An example of this is a film that an actor called "Zac Braff" who wanted to create a film but couldn't get funding from big companies, so he went to Kick Starter which help him fund the movie and got more than million more than the required amount and he was able to make it.

Development Funding: 

The last source of funding i will talk about it Development funding which is when is funded by some companies, like in Britain, some British films can be funded by the lottery or a certain charity in order to increase the British film industry by always bringing in new people to make the films and give funding to people's ideas and allow them to expand the British film industry and also make the industry better and more well known. An example of a film that was funded by the lottery and then sorted by the British Film institute is one called "United Kingdom" which done well in the box office with it making over 14 million pounds from a budget of 14 million and also got high ratings as well, like getting a 6.8 from IMDB or a 83% on rotten tomatoes.