Media ownership and funding

Public Service Broadcasting (PSB)

Public Service Broadcasting is the term applied to public media which is used for informing and educational purposes as opposed to financial gain by the broadcaster, a perfect example of PSB would be the British Broadcasting Company, created by John Reith in 1922. The BBC contains no advertisements from companies for example and they are not funded by the government and so do things their own way, however since they are left unrestricted then there is room for rule bending with little resistance due to the independence of the organisation.

Commercial Broadcasting

Broadcasting produced with the sole purpose of generating revenue through advertisements, product placement and even pay per view or subscription basis such as a sky package.

Corporate and Private Ownership

• Corporate Ownership=Ownership of materials by a community of companies owned by different persons

• Private Ownership=Ownership of materials by a company/companies that are in turn owned by a single person.

Global Companies

Companies that have many outlets for selling or producing different things all tied together by that one global company worldwide.

Concentration of Ownership

There is a particularly high concentration of ownership within media with a staggering 90%+ of all mainstream media being owned by one of six companies, where integration and communication is easily achieved between these companies there is a kinda tough luck attitude to things if you are sold a bogus product since the production is most likely a joint effort and not only that there is not much in the way of competition so they have free reign of what they want to do.

Vertical Intergration


Prime example of Verticle Intergration would be Apple. Since they control both the designs, operating software and software. Not only do Apple manufacture their products such as Ipods and Ipads but they also manage the sales by selling their products primarily on either their website or within one of their Apple stores and so are both involved with the manufacture as well as the distribution; the definition of Vertical Intergration is a string of companies within a corperation that handle different sectors of the buisiness itself and so is self sufficient given that they can depend on each concurrent sector in the chain.

Horizontal Intergration

A ploy by a company to create a powerful monopoly by using seperate studios ruled by one governing body in order to shut down competition. Since there is the ability to pump out a lot of media product within a relative short time when compared to Vertical Intergration there is alot of success to be had with one sector finishing up a huge project whereas a sister studio may just be building the foundations of its next production. Horizontal Intergration came about when the concentration of ownership became so prevalent with a fresh strategy for company synergy.

The Licence Fee

The primary income of the BBC, since there is no funding from outsources then the BBC doesn't get told what it can and cant report for fear of losing an investor and so should be a neutral outlook on the world, just because it should doesn't mean it does. The license fee itself is actually paid for by the viewers and so if the BBC wishes to remain funded then it must keep it audience happy.

Subscription

In media there are a variety of outlets that use subscription fees to keep running, wether it be a massively popular multiplayer game such as EVE: online, your favorite magazine or even just your humble sky box, all rely on a steady source of income which is provided by the consumer at regular intervals in order for continued service.

One-off payment to Ownership

Buying into something that has no ongoing costs, examples include: Playstation games, freeview boxes or even just your TV set itself, all relate to media but instead of paying a steady subscription fee you have to pay a sizable chunk of cash to get your hands on the gear and for them to get their next lot of money they either rely on continued sales or creating an updated version which convinces the consumer to once again part with their cash.


Pay per View

Pay-Per-View services are essentially one off payments for special events or sports such as new film releases or MMA bouts, these pay per view services are most commonly ran inside of a subscription based TV service such as Sky and are available at the touch of a button.






Sponsorship

A usually unrelated company will pay to fund the production while getting their product shown at either: the start and end of any ad breaks, on clothing of sports players or on the livelry of say a racecar, perticularly generous sponsors may even have the whole colouration of the car based on their trademark colours. The point in sponsorship is it raising awareness of said product, makes the sponsering company more powerful as well as making allies out of the sponsored company.

Advertisement

Advertisements generate a hell of a lot of revenue for those that are willing to plague their productions with them, the reason famous YouTubers can live off of YouTube is due to the revenue generated by the amount of people that will be exposed to the advert placed before the video itself. Also more obviously there are adverts on TV between breaks and again the company that is advertising shells out money to the channels broadcaster in order for some airtime, peak viewing times make for peak prices aswell. Just for a weeks worth of prime time advertising you will be set back quite alot; not so much an issue for large companies such as Unilever since they have more than enough money, the BBC self advertise and so get free advertisement on their own channels which is a great plus side of owning such a large company.

Product Placement

Essentially the paid placement of products by companies such as Coca Cola on popular shows especially ones watched by their demographics for example young people are targeted by Coca Cola and so a young persons show such as Hollyoaks may have Coca Cola Coke in some scenes especially high profile episodes with viewer population spikes.

Private Capital

Money out of the company/producers own pockets, generally used for lower budget films/games or for wannabe millionaires with spare money to waste.

Crowd Funding

An idea is pitched to the world in the hope that people will really get behind the idea enough to throw some money at the producers, websites such as Kickstarter.com let the producers allocate special gifts that vary in value dependant on how generous the individual backer is.

Development Funds

Funds generated by corporations such as the national lottery, you can appeal for a certain amount of funding and should you get accepted then the money is yours, easy as that, no owing money, no product placement/advertising, (well maybe a little advertising...) schemes such as this I actively encourage, they allow people with minimal available to them the chance to make something they will be proud of and that is the beauty of media in a nutshell.