Purpose

Discuss:1. Media texts as products of institutional,

economic and industrial processes.

2. The production, distribution and exhibition of media texts.

3. The advances in media technologies and how it effects the production and consumption of media

Terminologies for today:

1. Media Institutions2. Conglomerate3. Concentration of media ownership /

media consolidation / media convergence

4. Media oligopoly and merger5. Synergy6. Cross Media Convergence

FILM INSTITUTION

What is an institution?

‘organization or company, public or privately owned that produces and/or distributes media products.’

BBC ITV BSkyB ESPN EMI Sony Universal Microsoft HMV

Media Conglomerate/s

A media conglomerate is a company / institution that owns large numbers of companies

(subsidiaries) in various mass media such as television, radio, print and the internet (cross

media ownership).

 Cross Media ownership is when one company owns media outlets from different types of media. E.g.: Dawn group owns dawn channel, city fm 89 and dawn newspaper.

The Walt Disney Company is America's largest media conglomerate in terms of revenue, with News Corporation (now News Corp & 21st century fox), Time Warner, CBS Corporation, and Viacom completing the top five. 

Other examples of conglomerates: 21st Century Fox ABS-CBN Corporation AOL BBC Sony Corporation of America 

Time Warner Viacom 

ETC…

Concentration of media ownership

Concentration of media ownership (also known as media

consolidation or media convergence) is a process whereby

progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing

shares of the mass media.

Examples…

Cbs corporation owns cbs, cbs radio, simon & schuster editing group, a 50% ownership stake in the cw, etc. Though technically separate companies, CBS and viacom (owners of MTV networks and several mostly cable television stations) have a large portion of common ownership through sumner redstone'snational amusements.

Time warner owns cnn, tbs, tnt, sports illustrated time, and a 50% ownership stake in the cw. It previously owned time warner cable, but spun off that company in 2009.

Rupert murdoch, the media magnate, a part of news corp., Also owns british news of the world, the sun, the times, and the sunday times, as well as the sky televisionnetwork, which merged with british satellite broadcasting to form bskyb, and SKY italia; in the US, he owns the fox networks, the wall street journal and the new york post. Since 2003, he also owns 34% of directv group (formerly hughes electronics), operator of the largest american satellite TV system, directv, and intermix media(creators of myspace.Com) since 2005. See also murdoch newspaper list.

Oligopoly: When a few firms dominate the media industry.

Merger: Result of one media related company buying another company

for control of their resources in order to increase revenues and viewership.

Synergy

In media, synergy is the promotion and sale of a product (and all its versions) throughout the various subsidiaries of a media conglomerate, e.g. films, soundtracks or video games.

Cross Media ConvergenceCross Media: different medias (TV/ radio/ print/ film) or different media institutions (studios/ newspapers/ TV networks)

Convergence: the joining of two or more media companies or technologies to form a new object / promote a new product

In cross media convergence: more than one company benefits from working in a partnership. Cross media convergence ensures that the film reaches the widest audience available. ‘The Dark Knight’ had one of the most elaborate marketing strategies to date…

The Dark Knight – Case Study Produced by Legendary Pictures (with Warner Bros) Distributed by Warner Bros Directed by Christopher Nolan (Inception, Memento)