Income, ownership and regulations

Income, ownership and regulations

I have been given a job role as a researcher in which I have been commanded to produce a research report, in this report I will be putting my main focus into funding and ownership. One of my main objectives for this report is to learn and understand how the TV and Film industries are structured. Overall in this assignment I will explore funding and ownership within a TV and film industry.

Structure within a film and television industry means a way in which the media industries are gathered together to create different companies in the media, also to control or be in charge of individual sectors of media. This includes Conglomerate companies, independent companies, private companies, subsidiaries companies, commercial ownership and public service broadcasting companies.

Ownership in the film and television industry is when a group or an individual who controls and owns property of a media organisation an example of a company owned by a group or individual is a private company or a public service broadcaster. Funding’s is how an organisation or a company receives money, for example they could obtain funding’s from advertising, subscriptions, pay per view and television licence fee.

Public service broadcasting companies such as the BBC are owned by the government and receive payments to fund the channel from the television licence fee. The BBC which also stands for British Broadcasting Corporation receives payments from the public in which they pay a fee for their TV licence which comes to a total cost of £145.50.  Subscriptions is also a way for television companies to obtain money as the viewer can decide to pay weekly, monthly or yearly to get access to the content. TV channels can also receive payments from advertisers, as whenever an advert is advertised on a channel the advertising organisation or company pays for their advert to be presented. Channel 4 and ITV are great examples of channels in which are funded by their adverts and are both known as commercial ownership. Pay per view is also another way in which companies earn funding as this allows the viewer to access a programme to their television with every monthly payment. 

 Vertical integration is when a company creates a product from beginning to end which includes creating, exhibition and design of the finished product. A great example of vertical integration is Viacom and Disney as both of these companies create the product without any assistant from other organisations to dispute or produce the product. A few of Disney products are Bambi, Cinderella, Mickey Mouse and many more. Well as Viacom’s created TV series such as SpongeBob and fairly odd parents on their own.

 Horizontal integration are companies that involves handing their product to different companies for the other company to create it for them. This can include designing, creating/making, and distrusting the product, an example of horizontal integration was the film Titanic as the film ran out of budget and needed support from other companies to be fully developed.

Media conglomerate is when a large company contains multiple media interests and also has control of many subsidiary businesses within the media industry. A great example of a media conglomerate would be a company such as Disney, Warner Bros, BBC, Universal, ITV and Newscorp. All of these companies are known as conglomerate companies that has more than two media interests as well as they all own small companies that are in the media industry.

Media subsidiary is when a minor company is controlled/owned by a bigger company, for example the Disney Company has many media subsidiaries such as Walt Disney animation studio, Walt Disney pictures, Marvel entertainment, Pixar Animation studios, ABC broadcasting television, The muppets studio, Radio Disney, Channel Disney, 14 Disney theme parks and resorts, Walt Disney India and many more.

An independent company is when a company is all run by itself, this means the company is not controlled/owned by any conglomerates businesses. These media businesses do not usually last in the media industry as these companies are usually bought by conglomerate companies as the independent companies usually end up going out of business since the conglomerated companies has total control of the market.  This means the independent company becomes a subsidiary company for the conglomerate company. A great example of this situation was an independent business called “So television”, this company was running low on profits and was nearly running out of business until it was bought by ITV for around £17m plus any profits. Private businesses are made up of a small amount of shareholders or a non-governmental organisation. For example Aardman is known as a private television and film animation business. But companies such as Disney, Universal, Warner bros and Newscorp all stick to a certain budget as they do not receive any type of funding from TV licences, commercials or subscriptions.

Pay per view is a way for viewers to add extra programs in which they don’t already own to their television which they can then watch the programme on providing g they have paid the monthly fee. A great example of pay per view is “Now TV”, this is owned by Sky and is a pay as you go TV service. In this case product placement is a vital aspect to the TV and film industry as this brings awareness to the public since it’s a way in which you could advertise a business or product to be publicly known.

Subscriptions is another way for the public to view specific programmes however in this case they get to view certain channels which comes with a fee, in return the customer will be able to access the channel on their television box set for specific amount of time. For example if a customer has a deal with BT and would like to switch to SKY they would have to wait until their contract with BT has expired as they have already paid by subscribing to BT. In this situation the customer cannot be refunded to subscribe to Sky as BT has already credited them for their services.

Product placement is a form of advertising a company/brand/product, this is done by the organisation paying money to a television or film industry in order to display their product in a film or show. The more money in which the organisation pays for product placement the long it will be featured in the television show or film. In order to get full use out of the advertisement it’s important that the characters in the film/show interact with the product and have a good reaction to it as if a favourite character likes the product so will the fans.

Channels such as ITV and Channel 4 mostly gain their funding’s from advertising. This is because businesses will pay broadcasting channels such as ITV to display their adverts during the breaks featuring their products. Each advert is usually 2-5 minutes. For example 02 has funded Channel 4 to advertise the 02 newest sim card deals in-between the advert breaks in order to attract their target audience to help sell their goods.

  

Issues and debates

Issues and debates

Tastes and decency: Tastes and decency is a guideline created by Ofcom, this guideline is in place to make sure that no broadcaster present any content which may be offensive against a good decency or taste. Another reason why this guideline is in place is to prevent any type of encouragement to crime  as well as leading to disorder which may be very offensive to the public in society and feelings. Licensees must also take information about the guidance which is provided within section 1 of the ITC programme show, this also relates back to the use of bad taste in humour and language which may be offensive to some viewers. Finally in relation with the ITC’s family viewing policy on no circumstances are material that are unsuitable for children aloud to be shown before 9.00pm, advertising also has separate rules which can be found in rule 22 part C.

For example the comedy show “Family Guy” features bad humorous jokes which can be offensive to religion and race however they also include content such as bad language so therefore this content isn’t appropriate for children and must be shown over 9.00pm, however “family guy” did included a song about weed and how it should be legal however this is illegal in UK and the song is encouraging viewers to rebel against the law.

Quality and standards: Quality is the excellence of a channel as well as all the programs they produce, and standards is a certain expectation of a programme, for example is it meant to be that explicit? Or is it too explicit?

According to broadcasters in 1999 quality wasn’t up to standards and was classed as failing as a survey which had included more than 450 people that took part in. This then resulted in 70% of people felt as if the quality of TV output had diminish ever since 1994. According to statistics more than a quarter of people had agreed it’s got a lot worse and a low as one percent of people said they agree quality has improved within the period. People say that the reason for the poor quality was less money, a managing director had opinion saying “It’s very upsetting that even as inflation is still occurring, we are being told to create the same content of the programmes for less money than last year at the exact same standards”.

Public service broadcasting & the free market ethos: This is a broadcasting which gains funding’s publicly from the TV licence which will have a total cost of £145.50, in return the channel would then need to show programs which entertain, educate and inform the public as well as providing public services. The BBC is a broadcaster in which does this and has values such as honesty, this means the BBC must put the audience as first priority at the heart of thinking, and they must also present creativity within their content, celebrating diversity and lastly offer value for the customer’s money.

Divers is extremely important for the BBC as UK has many different races and religion within UK who do pay for their TV license and would then receive the same as everyone else. The BBC is owned by the government and is known as a public service broadcaster since the public pay for the BBC from their TV license. Since the BBC is a public service they must make sure they don’t provide any biased content. I personally think the BBC is one of the very best examples of public services as the BBC has been around for many years and was the first channel to ever be setup in UK and has regulations about their content which is important to the public.

Free market ethos: The free market ethos is slightly different from public service broadcasting as a free market ethos would not need any type of payment to broadcast which then allows a load of new audiences to be formed. There are also issues with free market ethos as since any company is allowed to form a channel and broadcast their content to the public, there could possibly be some content which viewers may find distressing or un-exceptable. The broadcasting Act 1996 was then invented to replace the old broadcasting act 1990 in order to allow more television companies to broadcast their own shows. Some example of free market channels are Dave, Really, Sky, MTV, Disney XD and E4. The 1996 Act does also include restrictions to what can be shown on the channels. If there was no restrictions companies would broadcast anything they want and this could lead to TV being low quality as there will be a lot of arguments and complaints which could shut down channels. Free market ethos can be positive as this allows channels such as Really which features ghost adventures and can be quit scary to younger viewers.

Ownership and access: Ownership and access is having the ability to own a piece of content which only you can access unless you choose to give access to the content to another person, for example channel 4 has ownership of the Simpsons as part of a contract and is aloud to broadcast it on television however if channel 4 didn’t have the any documents or ownership of the Simpsons and broadcasted the show this would then lead to illegal consequences such as heavy fines but the original owner.

Regulation and the free market: Regulations are the governing of videos and programmes and would then prevent the public mostly younger viewers from seeing anything innapropiete, and if the programme is found guilty of doing this they would be held responsible and would either be fine or delete the programme from being broadcasted. One of the regulators that deal with complaints and misuse of broadcasting is Ofcom where they invented the watershed which allows broadcasters to show content which may be inapropiet for children, the watershed starts at 9.00pm and at this time children should be in bed asleep meaning they wont see the explicit content. The film and video regulator is BBFC in which they lay down some rules to make sure only people who are a certain age can view the content. For example The hunger games , as this featured one of the contestants got hit by a spear and was then cut out, so all we saw was the spear being thrown and the person laying on the ground well as before we would see the person be hit by the spear. The free market is content in which is streamed/uploaded or downloaded for free, content from the free market is not regulated and can be watched by anyone meaning young kids could watch inapropiet content online, an example of free market is you tube or twitch.

Ratings wars: Ratings wars are when two primetime shows compete against each other to get more viewers so they can survive for another season and so they can obtain more funding, this mostly appeals to reality shows like the un-datebles which need to gain high enough ratings in order to continue the seasons and get more funding or they would be cancelled. Shows such as Britain got talent and the X-factor compete against each other to obtain viewers create a fragmented audience since both these shows are featured at the same time.

Effects of on-demand services: On demand TV service is away to catch up on any show you missed, for example the ITV hub allows you to view shows which have recently been broadcasted. This also means the when shows are competing they must look at the views obtained from broadcasting as well as the views gained from on demand. This then effects the viewing habbits of television shows as now people have on demand they can watch the programme whenever they feel like it and will miss out on the TV viewing. This is good news for the public as they can view their favourite programme whenever they feel like it, on the other hand this is bad news for the product creator as they may receive bad reviews since not many people are viewing the broadcast on TV and are watching it whenever they feel like it and some TV programmes may feel as if it is unpopular to the public which could lead to cancellation of the show.

The effects of streaming media online: Streaming videos online is a way for the public to freely search up videos, films and programmes online and download them for free from the internet, however this can be really negative as the quality of the film can be low and could also be classed as illegal viewing downloading from pirated websites which can put cinemas out of business. This means the media will lose money as people will no longer need to pay for the film since they can get it for free.