Ownership And Funding

Public service broadcasting

Public service broadcasting was introduced around the 1920's by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) after seeing what america did with their radio in the fact that all stations were commercial and were funded by sponsors, like soap operas, they're called soaps because usually all soaps were sponsors by detergents or different kinds of cleaning agents. At the same time the BBC didn't want to be funded by the government, so they came up with a license fee, where the audience had to pay a yearly fee to obtain a license to watch TV, this money now goes to the BBC and it has been like that since.

According to John Reith's memo, the BBC television channel should:

• Educate, inform and entertain;
• Lead public taste, not pander it;
• Act as a cultural, moral and educative force;
• Present the best of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement;
• Preserve a high moral tone, avoiding the vulgar and the hurtful;
• Bring the nation together 'as one man' by ensuring universal access;
• Act as a social cement to create a national identity and an enlightened democracy;
• Remain free from commercial and government pressures.

Although there has been a lot of controversy towards this subject due to the fact that there are now hundreds of commercially funded stations, and why should the BBC have to earn money from licensing, if the BBC does remove the fee then that would mean that they would have to be government funded which would raise taxes, or they could be funded by advertising which was what they were against in the first place.

Commercial Broadcasting

Commercial broadcasting was what the BBC was against, the first commercial television provider was ITV in 1955, when introduced, all they wanted to do was to show programmes for a huge audience or people with a lot of money, but ofcom decided they needed requirements to keep it informative, these requirements where that nothing could be shown that could be offensive, they must be protect childrens identities, and must show political impartiality. they also must show a minimum of 40 hours of childrens TV a year, they also had to show 7 hours of religous TV a week, which was grueling for children because there was nothing on the television during the weekends.

Corporate Ownership 

This is when a company is separated off by the individual who created it so that their liability is limited.

Private ownership

ownership that isnt in government control

Global Companies

the media industries are increasingly concentrated in the hands of very few companies, who all operate globally. There are six main companies which own the bulk of the worlds media. they are (source: Wikipedia):

	Comcast/NBCUniversal	21st Century Fox/News Corp	The Walt Disney Company	Viacom/CBS Corporation	Time Warner	Sony Corporation of America
Broadcast television network	NBC	Fox	ABC	CBS, The CW (50%)	The CW (50%)
Cable channels	USA Network, SyFy,Bravo, E!	FX, National Geographic Channel	ABC Family, A+E Networks(50%), Disney Channel	MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Showtime Networks	TNT, TBS, HBO
Movie production studio	Universal Studios	20th Century Fox	Walt Disney Pictures	Paramount Pictures, CBS Films	Warner Bros.	Columbia Pictures
Theme park resorts	Universal Parks and Resorts		Walt Disney Parks and Resorts	Nickelodeon Suites Resort Orlando	Parque Warner Madrid(5% ownership)
Publishing		Wall Street Journal,The Times	Marvel Comics, Disney Publishing Worldwide	Simon & Schuster	DC Comics, Time,People, Sports Illustrated
News channel	MSNBC	Fox News Channel	ABC News Now		CNN/HLN
Business channel	CNBC	Fox Business Network
National sports network	NBC Sports Network	Fox Sports 1	ESPN	CBS Sports Network	NBA TV
Record label		Fox Music	Disney Music Group	CBS Records	Warner Music Group	Sony Music Entertainment
Internet	iVillage, Fandango, Hulu(32%)	News Corp. Digital Media, Hulu (36%)	Disney Interactive Media Group, Hulu (32%)	MTV New Media, CBS Interactive	Flixster (32%)	Sony Online Entertainment

Vertical Integration

Media industries have different sectors. Eg the film industry ahs production, distribution and exhibition.  If a conglomerate owns companies in each area this is vertical integration. For example Time Warner onw a film sstudio (Warner Bros) a distribution company (Wasrner Distribution) and have also owned cinemas (Warner Village in the UK).

Horzontal Integration
When a conglomerate takes over other companies in the same sector of an industry to increase its control of that industry. Eg Disney buying Pixar,

Monopoly
If a conglomerate gains full control in a sector (full horizontal integration) they will  have a monopoly.  This is usually against the law but for a long time Sky had a monopoly in the UK satellite TV sector (until Freesat).

Sources For Funding

The Licence Fee:
When a media product needs a licence for you to use it, E.G. BBC.

Subscription:
When you pay a weekly, monthly, or yearly fee for a media product, E.G. Netlfix, NME magazine.

One-off Payment to own product:
When you pay one time and you own a media product for live, E.G. Music, Films, Games etc.

Pay per view:
When you pay a fee to watch a TV show or film on demand, E.G. Sky On Demand.

Sponsorship:
When a media program is sponsored by a product E.G. "The Simpsons, sponsored by the seven seat Kia caren".

Advertising:
When a media product or show is advertised on TV, Radio, or on Posters, E.G. "New Vanish oxi action"

Product Placement:
When a media product is placed into a scene of a move or TV show to subliminally convice the audience to use it, E.G. Placing a cleaning product in a drama or a soap opera.

Private Capital:
Investors that will produce the funds to get your media product off its feet, E.G. Dragons Den

Crowd-Funding:
When you go on the internet to ask strangers to help fund your media product, E.G. http://www.kickstarter.com/

Development Funds:
When you have a conglomerate, and you use some of the money from your other businesses to fund the media product, E.G. News corp.