Ownership and Funding Essay

Public Service Broadcasting (PSB):

Public Service Broadcasting or PSB brings a service to the public. In 1925 John Reith the first director general of the BBC released a memo talking about what PSB should be doing. One of the main points was that PSB should educate, inform and entertain and it should lead public tastes not pander to them. Bring the nation together, basically PSB was created to educate people and bring the nation together and would preserve a high moral tone whilst doing this. The BBC was the first television channel/broadcaster in the UK and at first it was classed as a monopoly, this is where they own the whole sector but they were the first of its kind, this is the reason why is was a monopoly. As you know now the BBC is no longer a monopoly as ITV and channel 4 etc have since been created. The BBC was all funded by the TV licence. The reason the BBC was funded by the TV licence is because they didn't want to have adverts that would bring down the standards of the BBC. They didn't want to be funded by the government either as they would then be accused of propaganda so they created the TV licence, this is where you pay £145.50 (back then it would have been a lot less) once you have paid this you can watch the basic channels on any TV in that household. Many think that PSB isn't relevant anymore, people think that there is no longer a need for it now that companies like SKY have come along where you pay a subscription fee and you get the channels and packages that you have paid for.

Commercial Broadcasting:

Commercial Broadcasting is completely different to Public Service Publishing. Commercial Broadcasting is funded by 2 revenue streams, advertising and subscription. The first is selling advertising space, the clue is in the question but this is where channels like ITV will sell advertising space to companies to advertise their products to us in between programmes. (ITV was the first of its kind, it was the commercial broadcaster in the UK.) This effectively makes us a product as well as if we like a product we would tell our friends and there for advertise their product for free. The second is subscription/pay for view, channels like this are SKY and virgin. This is basically where you will pay a certain amount a month for certain channels or you pay there and then to watch a film or to just watch a football game etc. Now channel 4 was different to anything that had been before as its publicly owned, they do not receive any public funding. It was designed to target minority audiences and make innovative shows and yet it was going to be a commercial channel. Channel 4 is funded by subscriptions from ITV and in return they would sell the advertising space to ITV for the regional channels. Everyone would be watching the same TV show however when it came to the adverts they would be different for each reason.

Corporate and Private Ownership:

There are two different types of ownership, Corporate and Private. Corporate ownership is a separate legal entity. Like an Ltd company it means if your company goes bankrupt it doesn't effect your personal funds. The owner is personally liable for his or her business's debts and losses, there is no distinction made between personal and business income, and the business terminates upon the death of the owner. A corporation that most people will know is in fact McDonald's. private ownership is basically anything that isn't owned by the government for example if you buy some private land, it is owned by you.

Global Companies:

There are many global companies around the world however there are 6 huge companies that own pretty much everything. They are called global conglomerates. At 6 we have VIACOM, some of there most known things they own are MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures and Comedy Central. Number 5 is News Corporation, they own all of Fox, and newspapers in England such as the Sun and The Times. Of course all of these conglomerates own hundreds more companies I'm just giving some well known examples. At number 4 Time Warner, now Time Warner have the most media based companies like their film studios (Warner Brothers), HBO and CNN. They have hundreds of companies that are media based and they own a huge percentage of the worlds media. Next is The Walt Disney Company which obviously own Disney Pixar and make huge amounts of money making films with their studios and then selling merchandise for their films around the world. Sony is at number 2 they own pretty much something from everywhere, Columbia pictures and Sony records are just a few of these companies. Surprisingly at number one is a conglomerate called General Electric however most people haven't actually heard of them. They mostly sell electrical appliances like fridges and freezers etc however they own NBC and many other television companies. Looking at the media aspect one or two companies dominate the industry however Time Warner is a clear winner in owning more media than its competitors. Its strange to think that only 6 companies own pretty much everything in the world, they generate billions of pounds every year.

Vertical and Horizontal Integration:

Now these companies can earn more and more money if they do something called Vertical Integration. This is where you own different sectors in an industry. There are 3 different stages of vertical integration 1: Production 2: Distribution and 3: Exhibition. Now if you own each of these sectors you can make millions of pounds. For example like Time Warner they would use their film studios to make a film and then sell it to the distributors, however if you owned your own distributor you would then save money as it would be all in the company. Years ago Time Warner did exactly this and owned film studios, its own distributors and its own cinemas. Now there are laws against owning all of the sectors and having full vertical integration. Now Time Warner own Film studios and Distributors they had to shut down/sell its cinemas however you do get companies that push the boundaries and try to get around the law as it makes so much money. They can also make large sums of money by doing something called Horizontal Integration this where where you would buy another company that could help out your company. For example Disney saw that Pixar would be a good asset to their company, so they bought Pixar and its now called Disney Pixar. Its basically where a global conglomerate will buy a company and make it theirs.

Monopoly:

Its very rare these days however sometimes you can have a Monopoly. A Monopoly is where you own everything in that sector. Like the BBC when it first started it was a monopoly as no one else had a television channel and the first news paper would have had a monopoly for a short time as its the only one and it owned as was making all the profits in that sector. This is not the only way to get a monopoly though. The Sun although its not the only new paper it can still achieve a monopoly, as they cannot buy the other news papers they put down the price of its paper to 10p for a week, this then steals readers from other news papers and therefore gives the sun a monopoly. This is the reason why the game is called Monopoly the aim is to own everything.

Funding:

There are many different types of funding you can get to make a television programme of a film and I am going to show and give examples of how you can.

License Fee:

The license fee is where every household that owns or wants to watch TV has to pay £145:50 every year for a colour TV and for a black and white TV which is very rare now is only £49:00. The license fee is primarily used to fund the TV, radio and online services of the BBC. The reason for this is because the BBC was the first television channel/broadcaster in the UK, however they didn't want to interrupt people with constant adverts and they didn't want to be government funding as they then could be accused of using propaganda as so they created the television license.

Subscription:

Subscription TV is where you will pay a company like SKY to view their channels, the signal is send by satellite (or cable) and then you are able to watch TV, they offer 'packages' that you can add on to the basic SKY package such as the sports package so you will then pay more money per month, however you will be able to watch the football games, tennis games and general sports games.#

1 off Pay: 

1 off pay is where you will buy a DVD of magazine and then it is yours, you can view or read it as many times as you want as you now own that product. You are free to sell, keep or destroy it as you own the product.

Sponsorship:

Sponsorship is a very simple concept. A TV show would be sponsored by a company, for example 'You've been framed' was sponsored by 'Felix'. A Felix advert would then be shown before the programme started or after every break.



Advertising:

Advertising is one of the most common ways of getting money for a television company, or any company at all can benefit from advertising. Focusing on television ITV would put adverts in between shows or in breaks, companies pay ITV for them to show their advert in between shows however they must choose adverts that suite the type and sex of the person watching the current programme. The general stereotypical audience for a car programme such as TopGear is male. So to show an advert of a woman's clothing range in between that show wouldn't appeal to the target audience so there is a process that adverts have to go through so they can attract the most attention from the biggest audiences.


Product Placement:

This is also a very simple concept. This is where a company will pay a TV show of film to show their product in the show or film. For example in the James Bond films Aston Martin would have paid for the car to be used for the 'bond car'. They will give you a certain amount of products that you can use within the film or TV show and you must show the product for a certain amount of time or what is contracted. In the bond scene where the Aston Martin is crashed they crashed around 4/5 cars to get the scene looking perfect however because they are featuring the car in the movie and its a huge movie and will give the car huge publicity they didn't mind giving them cars.



Private Capital:

This is where you get funding from a private investor, there is a woman who is the daughter of the third richest man in the world, she is giving up coming film makers and professional film makers money to create thier films. Basically private capital is where you get you get private investments from somebody.

Financial Aid/Development funds:

This is where you can get money from certain institutions such as the national lottery, they give huge amounts of money to the film industry. (http://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/funding). You basically get aid from an institution however there are now fewer and fewer places to get financial aid. Development funds are also pretty much the same thing.