Within the media industry is a vast amount of different sectors, everything varying from film to interactive media. Some companies are purely dedicated to one sector of the market however others cover a few, for example, Disney covers, interactive, film, TV, computer games and more. I will be describing eight of the different sectors of the industry which are; Film, Radio, Music, Advertising and Marketing, Press, Print media, Computer games, Interactive media and TV.
Film industry
The film industry is the sector of the media industry, as you probably guessed, which makes films, it is a huge grossing market as films can bring in millions and sometimes even billions gross profit but can also spend hundreds of millions of making a film and advertising it, for example the company behind Avatar spent 246 million dollars on the film and marketing and made $2,787,965,087 from box office. The film industry includes technological and commercial institutions of film-making, these two areas then cover; production companies, studios, cinematography, screenwriting, pre-production, post production, film festivals, distribution, actors, directors and other crew. An example of a film company is 20th century fox.
Radio industry
The radio industry has been around a lot longer than most of the current media industries, this is purely because we had radio before TV, film and computer games etc, however press was of course before this time. The radio industry has different types of radio stations underneath it, firstly public broadcasters, this means that these stations are funded by the public, government or license fees. The other area are commercial broadcasters, these are stations run independently, sometimes locally and advertise to stay on the air. These types of stations will have some commitments within their permit. Ofcom, the UK radio industry regulator are trying to introduce more small community run station, to bring communities closer and help bring people to listen to more local stations rather than big money making franchises. An example of a company who are involved in radio are the BBC, who are a public set of stations, paid for by license fees.
Music industry
The music industry is a huge sector of the industry because it involves everyone who is part of the process in making money, by making, selling and promoting music and an artist. Some of the groups involved include; publishers, producers, studios, engineers, record labels, retail stores and online stores. The music industry also involves live music, people involved in this include booking agents, promoters, venues, road crews, performance rights organisations and many more. There are so many more people involved in the industry, like musicians managers, broadcasters, and journalists. The industry also involves companies like Spotify, in which people pay a monthly fee or have a free account with adverts and part of that money made goes straight to the artist, however this is not normally much money. The current industry really emerged around the mid 20th century when records had supplemented sheet music. Another company from a different part of the music industry would be Columbia records.
Advertising and marketing industry
In basic terms the media industry all runs through advertising and marketing, without this sector we wouldn't have much of any of the other sectors really. This is because advertising and marketing is what has to happen to a product before it reaches the general public's eyes and ears. Marketing means looking into what is trending and what statistics show to work out what is best for the release of a product. Advertising uses marketing, however advertising itself is actually just a form of media used by companies to encourage, persuade, manipulate an audience into doing or getting something. An example of this type of company is Amaze who advertise Coke.
Press
The press industry is the area of the mass media which focuses on delivering news to the general public or a target audience. This is done through print media, like newspapers, digitally through TV ad online papers. An example of a press company is the News Corporation.
Print
The print media industry covers any form of disposable media printed on paper, this covers newspapers, magazines and newsletters. It has some really big rivals in electronic media, because of its ease of access and it means that trees don't need cutting down. Time Inc is a print media company.
Computer games
The computer games industry covers all the different aspects needed to make and market a computer games, this means this sector encompasses writers, designers, coders, music artists, advertisers. This industry is host to a lot of conventions like Games con in germany and E3 in LA is a worldwide important convention for industry insiders. A computer games company which is quite well known is Activision.
Interactive media
Interactive media companies like Disney produce interactive graphics which draw in big advertisement for companies because of it's fun nature. These interactive graphics are computer generated and controlled by the user and the industry covers jobs, like designers, editors, coder, app makers etc. Both computer and person need to take an active role when using the product otherwise this industry would be pointless.
TV
TV is the most popular form of entertainment in today's age. 62% of the people who actually work in the UK industry of TV actually live in London. Some of these peoples jobs will include Editor, director, makeup artist, researcher, marketers, agents, camera crews, producer, technical director, video engineers (live TV), lighting, set designers, audio technicians, play back operator, script supervisor, floor manager and many more.
Film industry
The film industry is the sector of the media industry, as you probably guessed, which makes films, it is a huge grossing market as films can bring in millions and sometimes even billions gross profit but can also spend hundreds of millions of making a film and advertising it, for example the company behind Avatar spent 246 million dollars on the film and marketing and made $2,787,965,087 from box office. The film industry includes technological and commercial institutions of film-making, these two areas then cover; production companies, studios, cinematography, screenwriting, pre-production, post production, film festivals, distribution, actors, directors and other crew. An example of a film company is 20th century fox.
Radio industry
The radio industry has been around a lot longer than most of the current media industries, this is purely because we had radio before TV, film and computer games etc, however press was of course before this time. The radio industry has different types of radio stations underneath it, firstly public broadcasters, this means that these stations are funded by the public, government or license fees. The other area are commercial broadcasters, these are stations run independently, sometimes locally and advertise to stay on the air. These types of stations will have some commitments within their permit. Ofcom, the UK radio industry regulator are trying to introduce more small community run station, to bring communities closer and help bring people to listen to more local stations rather than big money making franchises. An example of a company who are involved in radio are the BBC, who are a public set of stations, paid for by license fees.
Music industry
The music industry is a huge sector of the industry because it involves everyone who is part of the process in making money, by making, selling and promoting music and an artist. Some of the groups involved include; publishers, producers, studios, engineers, record labels, retail stores and online stores. The music industry also involves live music, people involved in this include booking agents, promoters, venues, road crews, performance rights organisations and many more. There are so many more people involved in the industry, like musicians managers, broadcasters, and journalists. The industry also involves companies like Spotify, in which people pay a monthly fee or have a free account with adverts and part of that money made goes straight to the artist, however this is not normally much money. The current industry really emerged around the mid 20th century when records had supplemented sheet music. Another company from a different part of the music industry would be Columbia records.
Advertising and marketing industry
In basic terms the media industry all runs through advertising and marketing, without this sector we wouldn't have much of any of the other sectors really. This is because advertising and marketing is what has to happen to a product before it reaches the general public's eyes and ears. Marketing means looking into what is trending and what statistics show to work out what is best for the release of a product. Advertising uses marketing, however advertising itself is actually just a form of media used by companies to encourage, persuade, manipulate an audience into doing or getting something. An example of this type of company is Amaze who advertise Coke.
Press
The press industry is the area of the mass media which focuses on delivering news to the general public or a target audience. This is done through print media, like newspapers, digitally through TV ad online papers. An example of a press company is the News Corporation.
The print media industry covers any form of disposable media printed on paper, this covers newspapers, magazines and newsletters. It has some really big rivals in electronic media, because of its ease of access and it means that trees don't need cutting down. Time Inc is a print media company.
Computer games
The computer games industry covers all the different aspects needed to make and market a computer games, this means this sector encompasses writers, designers, coders, music artists, advertisers. This industry is host to a lot of conventions like Games con in germany and E3 in LA is a worldwide important convention for industry insiders. A computer games company which is quite well known is Activision.
Interactive media
Interactive media companies like Disney produce interactive graphics which draw in big advertisement for companies because of it's fun nature. These interactive graphics are computer generated and controlled by the user and the industry covers jobs, like designers, editors, coder, app makers etc. Both computer and person need to take an active role when using the product otherwise this industry would be pointless.
TV
TV is the most popular form of entertainment in today's age. 62% of the people who actually work in the UK industry of TV actually live in London. Some of these peoples jobs will include Editor, director, makeup artist, researcher, marketers, agents, camera crews, producer, technical director, video engineers (live TV), lighting, set designers, audio technicians, play back operator, script supervisor, floor manager and many more.
Ownership
Private ownership
A company which is privately owned either by non-governmental organisations or by a relatively small number of shareholders. In a private ownership company stocks are not put up on the stock exchange market but instead are offered privately to a select few people, an example of a privately owned media company is Lucasfilm, George Lucas’ film company, George Lucas has achieved cross-media ownership as divisions of his company include Light & Magic, LucasArts, Lucas Licensing, Lucas Online, Lucasfilm Animation and Skywalker Sound.
Public company
A public company is a company in which has issued securities through and initial public offering (IPO), a public company is also traded on at least one stock exchange and is answer to all its stockholders if something goes wrong. These companies are put under regulatory scrutiny and major owners and company founders have less control, however they do have access to the debt markets. Twitter is a publicly owned company; a publicly owned media company is The New York Times Company, this is a company which is not really a cross-media company.
Public service Company
A public service company is a corporation or other non-governmental business which provides what is believed as the bare essentials in today’s societies. This includes natural gas, pipeline, electricity, telephone and telegraph. Other services that come under this heading include passenger or property transporters, like airlines, railroads, trucking, bus and cab companies. Therefore British gas would be a public service company, BBC is a media public service company, they have a huge cross media coverage, with radio, TV, film etc. In 2012-13 the BBC moved major departments from London to MediaCityUK in Manchester. This means that a lot of the people who worked within the departments that were moved had to be relocated, which would have been a big thing due to the large number of over 23,000 who worked for the BBC in 2011/12. This relocation actually means that the BBC hit targets to get more of their workers out of the capital, set in 2004. Although prices have had to rise due to travelling or relocating and it is our license fee money, the move does have the benefit of making more jobs outside of London.
Multinationals
Multinational companies have facilities and other assets in at least one other country to the one they were founded from, their home country. These companies, like Coca-Cola and Nike have offices and/or factories in different countries and generally have a head office centralised for the co-ordination of global business. These companies can create jobs and wealth in other companies; however with so much power they can exploit governments and third world countries. Nintendo is a company which is multinational, who create video games and consoles. It is also involved in interactive media so the company is across medias. In 2013 Nintendo bought a stake of 28% in the Panasonic spin-off company called PUX Corporation which specialises in face and voice recognition. Nintendo are going to use this software to improve its consoles in the near future. This will mean that gaming with a Nintendo will be very different and more advanced than some other consoles which will improve the company's sales and money intake. This may be needed, however the money spent on this stake may have been a part of the 30% dive in profits and pay-cuts for some of Nintendo's highest ranked people, including the CEO.
Independents
Independent companies are companies that are free from any outside control. These companies are usually privately owned establishments which are owned by investment shares on the stock market, most independent businesses take the shape of sole proprietorship companies. Examples of this are mainly self-employed people or small restaurants that are outside of a chain. October films is an example of an independent media company, a film and television production company. Straight away we know that they are cross media, covering TV and film. Recently they have increased the size of their management team which means they can have more of a stance in the UK and the US, as they have moved across offices with the recent increase. This means that the company can have a broader reach in terms of its productions and has a bigger stance in America. However this also means that more people have input that maybe not helpful to the company, it also means another person has to be paid which could increase profit margin.
Conglomerates
A conglomerate is a group of corporations engaged in completely different businesses but fall under one corporate group; this is usually involving a parent company and a varied amount of subsidiary companies. These companies are often large and multinational. Time Warner is a media conglomerate. Time Warner has a definite cross media coverage as they cover print media with DC Comics, TV and film with New Line Cinema, all subsidiaries of Time Warner. In 2012 Warner Bros. Home entertainment and Paramount Home Media Distribution reached an agreement so that Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner, rights to the distribution of Blu-ray and DVD distribution of several films from Paramount in American and Canada. This obviously means an increased income for Time Warner and Warner Bros. which is obviously a huge benefit. It also helps the revenue of Paramount as over 600 of their titles are available of Warner's streaming service Flixster. However the deal is for only three years which could be a disadvantage if Paramount decide to pull away after this time, both for the company and its customers.
Integration
Vertical integration
Vertical integration is when a business decided to expand its dealings into areas that are at different points on the same production path, example of this are when a manufacturer owns its supplier and/or distributor. Which is backwards and forwards integration, a form of vertical integration, This can decrease the costs and efficiencies of a company by reducing transportation needs and therefore expenses and turnaround times. Sometimes however a company can be more effective and save more money through relying on the expertise of other companies to supply and distribute their parts or products. Companies like 20th century were fully vertical, with producing, distributing and owning the movie theatres, however they had to sell off the movie theatres. They are still vertically integrated as they produce and distribute their movies, other examples in this category include Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers.
Horizontal integration
The concept of Horizontal integration is the contrast to Vertical integration. Horizontal integration is where a company's moves into business on the same level of production as itself. An example of this may be a film production company expanding into TV, it is the same level on the process of production. Another form of horizontal integration can also include merging with people who make the same product, with lots of this a monopoly affect can take place from one company. Hollywood studios is now horizontally integrated, whereas before it was vertically integrated. Rupert Murdoch owns a large amount of print media companies, and so this is also horizontal integration by him. Not crossing vertically can mean that a company is less in control of the whole media sector and they have to leave things up to other people to do for them. However if a company monopolises that company can make a huge amount of revenue and profit from their products, although many people don't agree with this monopolising.
Private ownership
A company which is privately owned either by non-governmental organisations or by a relatively small number of shareholders. In a private ownership company stocks are not put up on the stock exchange market but instead are offered privately to a select few people, an example of a privately owned media company is Lucasfilm, George Lucas’ film company, George Lucas has achieved cross-media ownership as divisions of his company include Light & Magic, LucasArts, Lucas Licensing, Lucas Online, Lucasfilm Animation and Skywalker Sound.
Public company
A public company is a company in which has issued securities through and initial public offering (IPO), a public company is also traded on at least one stock exchange and is answer to all its stockholders if something goes wrong. These companies are put under regulatory scrutiny and major owners and company founders have less control, however they do have access to the debt markets. Twitter is a publicly owned company; a publicly owned media company is The New York Times Company, this is a company which is not really a cross-media company.
Public service Company
A public service company is a corporation or other non-governmental business which provides what is believed as the bare essentials in today’s societies. This includes natural gas, pipeline, electricity, telephone and telegraph. Other services that come under this heading include passenger or property transporters, like airlines, railroads, trucking, bus and cab companies. Therefore British gas would be a public service company, BBC is a media public service company, they have a huge cross media coverage, with radio, TV, film etc. In 2012-13 the BBC moved major departments from London to MediaCityUK in Manchester. This means that a lot of the people who worked within the departments that were moved had to be relocated, which would have been a big thing due to the large number of over 23,000 who worked for the BBC in 2011/12. This relocation actually means that the BBC hit targets to get more of their workers out of the capital, set in 2004. Although prices have had to rise due to travelling or relocating and it is our license fee money, the move does have the benefit of making more jobs outside of London.
Multinationals
Multinational companies have facilities and other assets in at least one other country to the one they were founded from, their home country. These companies, like Coca-Cola and Nike have offices and/or factories in different countries and generally have a head office centralised for the co-ordination of global business. These companies can create jobs and wealth in other companies; however with so much power they can exploit governments and third world countries. Nintendo is a company which is multinational, who create video games and consoles. It is also involved in interactive media so the company is across medias. In 2013 Nintendo bought a stake of 28% in the Panasonic spin-off company called PUX Corporation which specialises in face and voice recognition. Nintendo are going to use this software to improve its consoles in the near future. This will mean that gaming with a Nintendo will be very different and more advanced than some other consoles which will improve the company's sales and money intake. This may be needed, however the money spent on this stake may have been a part of the 30% dive in profits and pay-cuts for some of Nintendo's highest ranked people, including the CEO.
Independents
Independent companies are companies that are free from any outside control. These companies are usually privately owned establishments which are owned by investment shares on the stock market, most independent businesses take the shape of sole proprietorship companies. Examples of this are mainly self-employed people or small restaurants that are outside of a chain. October films is an example of an independent media company, a film and television production company. Straight away we know that they are cross media, covering TV and film. Recently they have increased the size of their management team which means they can have more of a stance in the UK and the US, as they have moved across offices with the recent increase. This means that the company can have a broader reach in terms of its productions and has a bigger stance in America. However this also means that more people have input that maybe not helpful to the company, it also means another person has to be paid which could increase profit margin.
Conglomerates
A conglomerate is a group of corporations engaged in completely different businesses but fall under one corporate group; this is usually involving a parent company and a varied amount of subsidiary companies. These companies are often large and multinational. Time Warner is a media conglomerate. Time Warner has a definite cross media coverage as they cover print media with DC Comics, TV and film with New Line Cinema, all subsidiaries of Time Warner. In 2012 Warner Bros. Home entertainment and Paramount Home Media Distribution reached an agreement so that Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner, rights to the distribution of Blu-ray and DVD distribution of several films from Paramount in American and Canada. This obviously means an increased income for Time Warner and Warner Bros. which is obviously a huge benefit. It also helps the revenue of Paramount as over 600 of their titles are available of Warner's streaming service Flixster. However the deal is for only three years which could be a disadvantage if Paramount decide to pull away after this time, both for the company and its customers.
Integration
Vertical integration
Vertical integration is when a business decided to expand its dealings into areas that are at different points on the same production path, example of this are when a manufacturer owns its supplier and/or distributor. Which is backwards and forwards integration, a form of vertical integration, This can decrease the costs and efficiencies of a company by reducing transportation needs and therefore expenses and turnaround times. Sometimes however a company can be more effective and save more money through relying on the expertise of other companies to supply and distribute their parts or products. Companies like 20th century were fully vertical, with producing, distributing and owning the movie theatres, however they had to sell off the movie theatres. They are still vertically integrated as they produce and distribute their movies, other examples in this category include Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers.
Horizontal integration
The concept of Horizontal integration is the contrast to Vertical integration. Horizontal integration is where a company's moves into business on the same level of production as itself. An example of this may be a film production company expanding into TV, it is the same level on the process of production. Another form of horizontal integration can also include merging with people who make the same product, with lots of this a monopoly affect can take place from one company. Hollywood studios is now horizontally integrated, whereas before it was vertically integrated. Rupert Murdoch owns a large amount of print media companies, and so this is also horizontal integration by him. Not crossing vertically can mean that a company is less in control of the whole media sector and they have to leave things up to other people to do for them. However if a company monopolises that company can make a huge amount of revenue and profit from their products, although many people don't agree with this monopolising.
Media Companies
20th Century Fox
- Glee
- New Girl
- Futurama
- Family guy
- (Film) Avatar
- Joy ride
- Planet of the Apes
- Unstoppable
-I am referring namely to films and TV shows here, age restrictions impact distribution by affecting who the product can be sold to by putting an age limit on a film etc. This can really effect sales of a product badly as people of a younger age may be willing to see it.
-The age limits on a film can also impact the production of a product as it can mean that certain scenes may need to be cut in order to reach an intended age limit. Or it could be that part of the script needs re-thinking due to inappropriateness. This could really effect the storyline of the film.
20th Century Fox
- 20th century's chairman and CEO, is Jim Ginopulos.
- 20th century fox belongs to the Film and Television sectors and music. It also covers interactive/game media as Fox interactive.
- It is vertically integrated as they are involved in the production of their movies as well as the distribution, however they no longer have their own movie theatres due to the changes I mentioned earlier within the vertical integration section.
- The company is involved in various different sectors of the media industry, or at least the companies divisions, subsidiaries, parent or sibling companies make the company cross-media.
- Some of 20th century Fox's main rivals include Disney, Blue sky studios, DreamWorks and Universal studios.
- Some products of 20th Century Fox include:
- Glee
- New Girl
- Futurama
- Family guy
- (Film) Avatar
- Joy ride
- Planet of the Apes
- Unstoppable
- 20th century Fox has a incredibly large vary of customers, in-fact they cater to pretty much everyone, from teens and young adults with How I met your mother, to young children with Dragons and Dragon 2 and the older generations with different series like the bible, which also caters to Christians. Of course, other than with age restrictions, the films, TV, games and music of 20th century fox can appeal to any age. However I would think a large base of its customers are aged 15 to 30.
- As 20th Century Fox caters for such a large customer base the approach in terms of production and distribution varies across their range of products.
-I am referring namely to films and TV shows here, age restrictions impact distribution by affecting who the product can be sold to by putting an age limit on a film etc. This can really effect sales of a product badly as people of a younger age may be willing to see it.
-The age limits on a film can also impact the production of a product as it can mean that certain scenes may need to be cut in order to reach an intended age limit. Or it could be that part of the script needs re-thinking due to inappropriateness. This could really effect the storyline of the film.
- In 2013 20th Century Fox changed ownership. It was owned by News Cooperation but in 2013 21st Century Fox, which was created in the News Cooperation split, took over and became the owners of 20th Century Fox. This meant that more value could be unlocked for shareholders of the company as the news side of the company was at a loss. By splitting the two companies it would mean the film based side of the cooperation wasn't being dragged down by the $2.1 billion loss in the 2012/13 financial year.
BBC
- The Beatles Magical Mystery tour
- (TV + Radio) In total 50 different channels are currently run by the BBC including:
- BBC 1
- BBC 2
- BBC 3
- BBC America
- BBC Scotland
- BBC Radio 1
- BBC Radio 2
- (TV) Mrs Browns Boys
- Badults
- Copycats
- The life of Riley
- Still game
- Another example of distribution to varied audiences with the BBC is the watershed, the BBC have to stick to the strict rules about TV that is on before the watershed time and therefore any TV or Radio that do not meet these standards must be shown after 9pm. This again links to younger audiences not viewing inappropriate content. This could actually be a hindrance on viewings and further so money made by the BBC.
- The BBC is owned by the Government as it is a public service media company.
- The BBC is in the TV, Radio and Film sectors of the media industry.
- The BBC is a vertically integrated company as it is involved in the production and broadcasting of its shows, radio stations and films. This type of integration means the BBC has a huge handle of their shows and what happens to them.
- As the company covers TV, Radio and Film this makes the BBC a cross media company and some of its products include:
- The Beatles Magical Mystery tour
- (TV + Radio) In total 50 different channels are currently run by the BBC including:
- BBC 1
- BBC 2
- BBC 3
- BBC America
- BBC Scotland
- BBC Radio 1
- BBC Radio 2
- (TV) Mrs Browns Boys
- Badults
- Copycats
- The life of Riley
- Still game
- Some of the main competitors of the BBC include ITV and Channel 4, however the BBC is by far the most diverse and biggest TV broadcast company to date.
- The BBC caters to all ages, and has channels on their list for every gender, country, continent, race, age and anything else you could possibly think of, for example BBC Asian and CBeebies are two channels that cover two completely different audiences. As a public service company it is provided to supply such a diversity for everyone that has access to the BBC.
- For the BBC the customer base changes from channel to channel and therefore the production and distribution is impacted.
- Another example of distribution to varied audiences with the BBC is the watershed, the BBC have to stick to the strict rules about TV that is on before the watershed time and therefore any TV or Radio that do not meet these standards must be shown after 9pm. This again links to younger audiences not viewing inappropriate content. This could actually be a hindrance on viewings and further so money made by the BBC.
- In 2013 Tony Hall became the Director-General of the BBC, he took over from the Acting general Tim Davie. He is still the Director-General of the BBC to date. Implications of this were, that new plans to become bigger and better as a BBC were introduced, to make the company more efficient and competitive. This ultimately will lead to good implications as they get bigger and bigger, for example more jobs could be created. However at the rate of the current recession it looks like jobs are being lost faster than being created.