Ownership and Funding

Ownership Concepts:

- Public Service Broadcasting (PSB)
The UK government began 'Public Service Broadcasting' originally for radio back in the 1920's. After seeing the 'commercial broadcasting' that the US took part in and not liking what they saw, believing it was just full full of low quality content with its only purpose being to attract a large audience, as opposed to airing any educational or informative stuff. This type of broadcasting came in the form of the BBC in 1926, beginning TV broadcasting ten years later, funded by a license fee put in by the government to be paid by the public called the 'TV license', with the mindset being that it would be better than funding it through advertising or directly by government, as it would avoid the pure commercialism of the US and the problem of propaganda respectively. The BBCs goal was to "inform, educate and entertain", in that order...

- Commercial Broadcasting
A rival TV broadcasting company in the country was introduced by the government in the 1950's, which was funded exclusively commercially. This would be known as the Independent Television (also know as the ITV), causing British television from then on to change from a monopoly to a duopoly. Regulations were imposed on the ITV, which were to also be imposed on any following broadcasting companies of the same sort, and were all based on public service principles. These included having the companies air programmes of specific genres, including educational, children's, new and religious programming, due to the fact these do not maximize audiences, who are the product made and sold by commercial media companies, and a pure commercial company would hate to air them as a result.

- Corporate and Private Ownership
Every broadcasting company in the United Kingdom, with the exception of the BBC and Channel 4, fit under the definition of 'private ownership'. In other words, almost all broadcasting companies in the UK are owned by a private organization or individual, as opposed to being owned by a public body or the state like with the exceptions.

- Global Companies
Nowadays, the ownership of media is becoming more and more concentrated into the possession of a small handful of companies. For example, over ninety-five percent of all of the world's media is owned by just a few companies, meaning that conglomerates (a group of companies being all under the same ownership) are taking up a lot of the content existing currently in this field. Within global companies, there is something called 'synergy' which exists, which essentially consists of cross-advertising and/or profit making opportunities from different companies in a conglomerate, which are based around a core brand (for example, a hugely successful media brand like the Simpsons, which is primarily a television show, but has since made money through a movie, toys and video-games which are all based on the same brand).

A chart of the wide ownership of media in the US alone >>>

  


- Vertical Integration
Integration of companies can come in two forms - vertical and horizontal. Vertical integration specifically is the act of all sectors within an industry, which in this case is the media industry, becoming apart of the same company. An example of this in the film industry would be if a production studio was to take over a company on the production level (a distribution company), followed by taking over one or many from the exhibition level (cinemas). Nowadays, many countries have laws in place to prevent this type of total integration from being able to happen, due to the potential of it causing foul play in the industry (such as a company withholding distribution a movie they made to cinemas outside of their ownership for example).

- Horizontal Integration / Monopolisation
The other type of integration that exists is known as 'horizontal integration'. As its name suggests, this type involves the integration of companies that exist on the same level, as opposed to ones from different levels like with vertical. This is often done by a company with the intent of trying to increase its market share, by either making their rival companies go bust by out-competing them, or buy simply buying the rival companies within a same sector (an example of this would be the situation between Disney and Pixar in 2006, with Disney purchasing them after the company's huge success with their 3D computer animated films).

Funding Types:

- The License Fee
A quite uncommon type of broadcast funding that exists is reliant on something known as 'the license fee'. This funding type first came around in 1926 with what was known at the time as the British Broadcasting Company (the BBC), which involved the broadcasting of the company being funded by the nation's public. Each person in the country had to pay what was called the 'TV license' in order to be able to listen to and/or watch whatever was broadcasted by the company, and the company would then use that funding to create the content without having to rely on any advertising or government funding, with the same operation is still used to this day.

- Subscription
The idea of a subscription model in this case is that the viewer pays a set fee to the broadcaster (usually needing to be payed each month), which allows the, to watch whatever content is being broadcasted by them. However, if the viewer can not or decides not to pay that cost one month, they will not be able to watch the broadcaster anymore until they renew their subscription. Examples of broadcasters who use this subscription model for their funding include mainstream broadcasters like Sky, or slightly more niche ones such as Netflix or Hulu.

- One-off payment to own product
This is one of the most simple ways of funding directly for the viewer, as once they have paid the one-off fee to own whatever product they want to possess, they do not have any other fees to keep up with in order for them to keep the product. These types of funding can come in the form of a viewer purchasing a DVD or Blu-ray of series of a show they enjoy, or the digital side of the same idea where the viewer purchases an episode of the show digitally. This can be be done on places like the PlayStation or Sky Store, and still allow the purchaser to own the product permanently, except for situations where they forget their login details to the place they brought it off for example.

- Pay per View
Shows which are funded primarily by the 'pay-per-view' business model are often things like large sports events, such as live wrestling or boxing matches. This type of funding is used by companies like Sky, who often lock events they have the right to air on their Sky Sports channel(s) behind this pay-per-view wall. The basic concept is, as the name suggests, that the viewer of the broadcasted content must pay a fee that the broadcaster has put in place so they can watch it when it happens, followed by the event being shown to each person who had ordered it at the same time

- Sponsorship
A much more direct type of funding a show is a direct sponsorship. These are similar to ordinary ads which are seen on television, but are instead placed directly before a specific show (or type of show) and are often quite a bit shorter. This type of funding is a lot more beneficial for the specific show, as the sponsor could be providing financing for the creative budget that the network may sometimes not approve of so much. It is also quite beneficial to the sponsor themselves, as it has been proven that if a brand or name is attached with the name of a show, the audience's trust in the brand can grow.

- Advertising
Arguably one of the most common types of funding that is found on television nowadays, used by channels such as ITV, Comedy Central, and many more, is to do with advertising of other companies. The basic concept is that in between shows, as well as in the middle of each show (usually at least every thirty minutes for the UK), advertising space is bought and payed for by whatever company decides they want to advertise their product or service on the channel. The money gathered by the broadcaster from this is the, of course, spent on the creation of their shows. When it comes to how costly the advertising space is for the advertisers, this depends on many factors, including but no limited to the length of the ad they want shown, the popularity of the show it is showing between and the time of day (or even year).

- Product Placement
This type of funding for a media product works similarly to direct sponsorships, except instead of an ad for the paying company being played at any point, the company's product or service is simply seen within the show. Again, similarly to with sponsorships, the inclusion of the brand in the show being seen by the viewer and the image of the characters in the show perhaps even using the company's service or product can lead to the viewer's trust in the brand and maybe even the want to use the brand increasing because of its inclusion.

- Private Capital
This type of funding is known to include private investment from individuals, either funding their own films or other's. Some examples of people who used this type of funding in order to have the thing they want created include Robert Rodriquez participating in experimental clinical drug testing in order to make the seven-thousand dollars he needed to create his film 'El Mariachi', and in terms of funding someone else's project, Megan Ellison is known to have financed a film herself that was reported to have a budget of two million dollars.

- Crowd-funding
A much more modern funding type for media products these days is called 'crowd-funding'. This relies on money and finance coming directly from members of the public, with websites like Kickstarter or Patreon which allow anyone to create a fundraising campaign. Funding like this allows more independent and unknown creators to be found and funded to create what they want to make, without having to rely on what a specific broadcaster does or does not allow for them to fund it for example, as well as many other restrictions which come with a lot of the other types of funding detailed above.

- Development Funds
In some cases, a broadcaster may decide that the best way to fund their content is by using development funds. Often, this type of funding includes someone applying for a loan from the bank to pay for the expenses of the content creation. However, other ways can include applying for a grant from a private foundation or the government. The BFI (British Film Institute) is a good example of a company who funds others creative visions like this, being a film and charitable organisation who promotes film-making in the United Kingdom. This organisation specifically uses lottery funds to encourage the production and distribution of films like this.