Structure and Ownership of the Media Industry
The Structure and ownership of a media company determine the types of products and services the company will provide. In 1983, 90% of American media was owned by 50 companies. In 2011 the same 90% is controlled by six companies known as the Big Six Media Giants. These six companies and their notable properties are:
- GE - Comcast, NBC, Universal Pictures, Focus Features
- News Corporations - Fox, Wall Street Journal, New York Post
- Disney - ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Miramax, Marvel Studios
- Viacom - MTV, Nick jr, BET, CMT, Paramount Pictures
- Time Warner - CNN, HBO, Time, Warner Bros
- CBS - Showtime, Smithsonian Channel, NFL.com, Jeopardy, 60 Minutes
Within these six companies are 232 media executives that control the information diet of 277 million Americans. This means that their is one media executive to every 850,000 subscribers. This may sound unreasonable, but when a highly successful company gets a hugh enough profit, they can invest in buy other companies to variate their brand even more. For example, Disney bought Pixar in 2006 just before Cars was released. They could see that the unique company was on the rise, and it would be a good investment for them. In 2010 the total revenue for the Big Sixwas $275.9 billion, which is enough to buy every NFL team 12 times!!!
News Corporations is founded by Rupert Murdoch. It is the world's second largest media corporation which also owns The Sun and The Times in the UK. The ownership of the media reflects on the content within. Freedom of the press or media is the freedom of the communication and expression through vehicles including various mediums. Questions relating to this freedom of press have been raised in the Leveson inquiry. The Leveson inquiry is an ongoing public inquiry into the ethics of the British Press following the News International phone hacking scandal. The prime minister appointed Leveson to look into claims about phone hacking at the news and the world, which hacked phones including celebrities, police and members of parliament.
The sector that I have chosen to do for my final major project is film. The "Big Six" box office sales hit $7 billion in 2010 which is twice the box office sales of the next 140 studios. As I sad before this is because the more successful companies can invest in other rising companies to expand their business. In 2001, AOL bought Time Warner for $124 billion. All these succesful businesses are multi-national, which means they have interests and smaller companies in many countries around the world. An examples of this is News Corporations. Rupert Murdoch is the chairman and CEO and owns many companies in America and in other countries around the world, including here in England. He owns the British Sky Broadcasting (also known as Sky), which is one of the world's largest multi-media corporations. This company alone produces; books, magazines, newspapers, music, radio and films and is one of the biggest broadcasters of satellite and cable television.
The BBC is the oldest broadcasting company in the UK. It is an organization that is completely publicly funded, and is an example of cross-media ownership. The company began on the radio before moving into television, on numerous channels. Their aim is to enrich people's lives with the programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain.
The sector I will be exploring in this case study is film. In our final major project we decided to do a stop motion animation, which is a type of film. A stop motion animation, is a series of frames put together with an item or character changed slightly between each frame. When played together rapidly, there is a fluid motion between each each frame, giving the illusion of movement.
Structure is a vital part in film-making. By utilizing numerous structural techniques, filmmakers induce different feelings and give more depth to content, it gives a deeper understanding of the content in scenes. For example, in Harry Potter there is over 100,000 props and sets. In the fourth film at the Quidditch World Cup, they were all holding rolled up programmes. These programmes were shown for about a second, but the creaters of them had actually made proper programme, filled from front to back. Especially in Harry Potter, but with just about any film, the art department is very under praised. Everything we see on the big screen, has been carefully thought over and designed to every tiny detail. These are also the people that make the films come to life, after the script is written it is all down to them. When the scenes and props are created and the script is learnt by the casted actors, the director needs to create the scene. This is done through colouring, lighting and the camera angle/position to induce the required feeling/effect. For example, a lower camera angle, makes characters look more superior. When the filming of each scene is complete the post-production team can start their work of putting all the scenes into place, cutting out mistakes and editing necessary clips. Editing is crucial, as nowadays you can do absolutely everything; create monsters using CGI, explosions, and anything you can possibly think of. In the process of cutting scenes, all depends on the type of film that is being made. If it is an emotional/dramatic film it will have fewer cuts than an action film, as it has a much faster pace.
The majority of films are filmed in America, primarily in New York and California. There are two different types of films; major and independent. A major film is a movie production and distribution company that releases a considerable amount of films per year, and consistently has box office revenues. The major film studios today (the "Big Six") focus more the developing, financing, marketing and merchandising, rather than the production side of things. For a film to be successful, it has to be marketed well, as well as being widely distributed so that the biggest audience possible can go see the film. The other type of film is called an independent film. This type of film is filmed primarily or completely outside the major film studio system. These films usually distinguishable due to their content and artistic style. These are also made with much lower budget than a major film, and are usually on a limited release at the cinema, or sometimes only certain cinemas. This isn't that great as it can be difficult to see these types of films, whereas a major film you can see pretty much anywhere.
In both the UK and America media is a major factor in our lives and industry itself is extremely competitive. Most employees have to work long hour shifts with very little pay, but as it's their dream to become successful in the industry many people stick it out. The media covers an extremely wide range of areas to work in. Some of these include; Film, TV, Radio, Publishing, Video gaming, retail, advertising, fashion, makeup, special effects, visual effects, etc.
Bibliography
The sector that I have chosen to do for my final major project is film. The "Big Six" box office sales hit $7 billion in 2010 which is twice the box office sales of the next 140 studios. As I sad before this is because the more successful companies can invest in other rising companies to expand their business. In 2001, AOL bought Time Warner for $124 billion. All these succesful businesses are multi-national, which means they have interests and smaller companies in many countries around the world. An examples of this is News Corporations. Rupert Murdoch is the chairman and CEO and owns many companies in America and in other countries around the world, including here in England. He owns the British Sky Broadcasting (also known as Sky), which is one of the world's largest multi-media corporations. This company alone produces; books, magazines, newspapers, music, radio and films and is one of the biggest broadcasters of satellite and cable television.
The BBC is the oldest broadcasting company in the UK. It is an organization that is completely publicly funded, and is an example of cross-media ownership. The company began on the radio before moving into television, on numerous channels. Their aim is to enrich people's lives with the programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain.
The sector I will be exploring in this case study is film. In our final major project we decided to do a stop motion animation, which is a type of film. A stop motion animation, is a series of frames put together with an item or character changed slightly between each frame. When played together rapidly, there is a fluid motion between each each frame, giving the illusion of movement.
Structure is a vital part in film-making. By utilizing numerous structural techniques, filmmakers induce different feelings and give more depth to content, it gives a deeper understanding of the content in scenes. For example, in Harry Potter there is over 100,000 props and sets. In the fourth film at the Quidditch World Cup, they were all holding rolled up programmes. These programmes were shown for about a second, but the creaters of them had actually made proper programme, filled from front to back. Especially in Harry Potter, but with just about any film, the art department is very under praised. Everything we see on the big screen, has been carefully thought over and designed to every tiny detail. These are also the people that make the films come to life, after the script is written it is all down to them. When the scenes and props are created and the script is learnt by the casted actors, the director needs to create the scene. This is done through colouring, lighting and the camera angle/position to induce the required feeling/effect. For example, a lower camera angle, makes characters look more superior. When the filming of each scene is complete the post-production team can start their work of putting all the scenes into place, cutting out mistakes and editing necessary clips. Editing is crucial, as nowadays you can do absolutely everything; create monsters using CGI, explosions, and anything you can possibly think of. In the process of cutting scenes, all depends on the type of film that is being made. If it is an emotional/dramatic film it will have fewer cuts than an action film, as it has a much faster pace.
The majority of films are filmed in America, primarily in New York and California. There are two different types of films; major and independent. A major film is a movie production and distribution company that releases a considerable amount of films per year, and consistently has box office revenues. The major film studios today (the "Big Six") focus more the developing, financing, marketing and merchandising, rather than the production side of things. For a film to be successful, it has to be marketed well, as well as being widely distributed so that the biggest audience possible can go see the film. The other type of film is called an independent film. This type of film is filmed primarily or completely outside the major film studio system. These films usually distinguishable due to their content and artistic style. These are also made with much lower budget than a major film, and are usually on a limited release at the cinema, or sometimes only certain cinemas. This isn't that great as it can be difficult to see these types of films, whereas a major film you can see pretty much anywhere.
In both the UK and America media is a major factor in our lives and industry itself is extremely competitive. Most employees have to work long hour shifts with very little pay, but as it's their dream to become successful in the industry many people stick it out. The media covers an extremely wide range of areas to work in. Some of these include; Film, TV, Radio, Publishing, Video gaming, retail, advertising, fashion, makeup, special effects, visual effects, etc.
Bibliography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveson_Inquiry
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