Industries: Ownership and control

Media conglomerate research

1) Type up your research notes from the lesson

 News Corp 

News Corp owns many subsidiaries such as Fox Sports Australia, Fox Crime, Sky News Weather, TalkSPORT radio and GQ Australia are just a few to name. This allows them to make maximum revenue and to establish into further media fields. Also, the potential loss of the parent company can be helped by the subsidiaries, which is why they have many subsidiaries. 

Vertical integration - Started by buying newspapers and television stations - for news and weather.

Fox Filmed Entertainment & Fox Cable News. 

Horizontal integration - Magazines and TV studios

GQ Australia

Synergy - Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

Diversification - Digital real estate, contributes to 44% of the company - this allows News Corp to gain money from different areas in the media and also to get an audience aware of their products/company.

2) Do you agree that governments should prevent media conglomerates from becoming too dominant? Write an argument that looks at both sides of this debate.

In my opinion, I disagree with this statement as the whole point of making a business (the media conglomerate) is to grow huge and expand for monetary and also to outplace any other competition. So, if the government prevented a media conglomerate from becoming too dominant, then it defeats to the whole point of a business. The government should focus on tackling real problems and let people to use the source of their media freely.

However, some may argue that the business market should be shared equally and not have one dominant conglomerate as other companies need revenue and it is unfair if one company takes all of this market. 

Media Magazine reading and questions

1) Briefly describe the production, promotion and distribution process for media companies.

Production - provides the audience with by knowing what the audience wants and using their gratifications.

Promotion - research's the target audience and uses strategical marketing and advertising to convince them to buy the product. 

Distribution - uses methods to make the product more accessible for the audience.

2) What are the different funding models for media institutions?

BBC - funded by the licence fee

ITV - fees from advertisers for using their channel for advertising

Sky One - subscription fee's

Sony - sales from hardware

The MailOnline - sales from advertising spaces

3) The article gives a lot of examples of major media brands and companies. Choose three examples from the article and summarise what the writer is saying about each of them. 

Disney - family-friendly brand with mainly animation movies, established in 20th century. Branded itself by having things like Disneyland, Disney princess franchise. Has given products and iconic logos to create a sense of their awareness. 

Marvel - associated with the superhero genre franchise. Started as comics and developed into films. Provide mainstream values.

Spotify - developed to counteract free downloads, so people can listen to music with ads, or subscriptions without them. 

4) What examples are provided of the new business models media companies have had to adopt due to changes in technology and distribution?

More audiences are wanting a 3D movie experience, which has resulted in the movie industry in investing in technology for having/giving 3D experience to offer gratifications. 

On-demand viewing is becoming more popular in today's audience, so BBC has decided to reconsider its funding structure for it.

5) Re-read the section on 'The Future'. What examples are discussed of technology companies becoming major media institutions?

Google - owns YouTube and has established new ways to access music and videos.

Amazon - create, produce and broadcast their own TV shows - establishes their company.

Facebook - bought VR technology, which is an advantage for audiences as it offers them gratifications.

6) Do you agree with the view that traditional media institutions are struggling to survive?

I agree, as young audiences don't consume media the same way that an older audience would've to original media institutions. For example, a youth audience don't really view/watch BBC anymore as there are more things aimed at older audiences, so doesn't appeal to the youth and doesn't offer them gratifications. 

7) How might diversification or vertical integration help companies to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing media landscape? 

Diversification and vertical integration help's the parent company with their financial growth and also to further establish their company to larger audience. It also helps with going forward with the future by advancing with the technology.

8) How do YOU see the relationship between audience and institution in the future? Will audiences gain increasing power or will the major global media conglomerates maintain their control?

I think the power between audiences and institutions are balanced. This is because audiences provide the institutions with the money, which puts the institutions in a position where they have to rely on the audience otherwise, they won't have revenue, so need to make their products using their target audiences' gratifications. But the audience are also dependent on the institutions, which makes them powerful as they can control what their audience consume. In the future, major global media conglomerates will maintain their power and control as audiences are dependent and reliant on them.