Ownership and Funding

Public Service Broadcasting:

This is a service where the public pays for a license in order to view the service on offer. This was created in the 1920s and the main one was the BBC. They did not wish to fund their service like every other company by using commercially funded money, and instead wanted to be a service to the public. Hence the name Public Service Broadcasting. Before they came to the conclusion they would get their money from the public TV licencing, they first tried to get funded by the government before soon realizing that they could be at risk of being accused of government influenced propaganda and instead chose not to. The BBC saw commercially funded organisations as vulgar. As they are a public funded  organisation it means that they are required to show certain types of shows and documentaries in order to gain larger audiences and fulfill their needs. This may be shows such as; Children friendly shows, educational videos, wildlife documentaries, the news etc. License funding is where the public has to pay so much to view the companies content and will often be offered as a part of a package deal. An example of this would be BT or Sky, where they have to pay for broadband as well as the viewing privileges.

Commercial Broadcasting: 

Commercial broadcasting which was previously seen as "vulgar" to the BBC, is the way in which the broadcasting companies are funded. These channels often sell their audience to advertisements in order to be able to fund their company. This will often happen through companies paying to have slots between shows in order to show off their products to the viewers in a hopes that it will increase their sales. As well as using adverts products will also sponsor programmes and football teams in order to show off their product. A few examples of this would be Geordie Shore and Manchester United. Geordie shore is a reality TV show which features adverts at the beginning of each section of their shows saying that they are sponsored by "Boohoo" a clothing company. Manchester United however, do not have a TV show so instead wear the logo/badge of Chevrolet on their kits. Commercial funding has been a very big industry for a large amount of time. The most popular perhaps, being "Free-view". This is a massively commercially funded company, they give certain TV channels to their viewers for free as they make their money by being funded by a large amount of commercials and advertising.

Corporate and Private Ownership:

Throughout the companies and organisations within the media sector, the main two types of ownership are Corporate and Private. These types are different within their funding methods, Corporate is a term used when a company is publicly owned. This can be a rather expensive process in order to make the company public. The BBC is a perfect example of a publicly owned company, whereas TV corporations such as ITV are privately owned companies which rely on their own assets in order to be able to fund their company. This can be through many shareholders in the company.

Global Companies:

In the media industry, or any industry for that matter, there are very few individual companies. The large majority of them will either partner with another company or expand. This will help their companies to grow as being a single company does not come with many perks. An example of this would be News Corporation, they are one of the richest influential companies in the media industry at this current time. News Corporation is a media giant owning companies in Britian such as The times and The Sun newspapers. The News Corporation are so rich, they are able to buyout other companies in order to add to their profit and expand their budget even more. 

Concentration of Ownership:

90% of the worlds media is actually only owned by 5 companies. These companies are media giants due to the amount of partnerships and expansions they have made. These companies are getting increasing conflict with the way media is now being transferred to the internet and social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook. This is also a massive issue when it comes to piracy. The internet and the large amount of users it has makes it easy to have online streams of pretty much every film ever made. This means that companies such as the News Corporation get no money for the production when it is being viewed by everyone on the internet without paying for it. However, the internet cannot all be bad as a lot of their productions will often be offered on video streaming sites such as Netflix and Amazon Video.

Vertical and Horizontal Intergration/Monopolization:

The process in which the film industry produces films is first through the production. This is where the big companies such as Warner Bros will pay their sub companies and give them a budget to make their production. Next is the marketing process, this is the process where they will do all of the advertising for the production and will try to create a hype for the film and gain a bigger audience for before it is released and during its release, perhaps even after. This will increase their return for the product and give them a much higher profit. After this is then the distribution process. This process is where they choose where they wish to distribute their product to. This can be ranging from which platforms they wish to make it available on to which cinemas they are going to be showing their production in. They will often give these films to big companies which own a range of cinemas so they will distribute it to all of their cinemas across the globe. The distribution company may also choose which countries they are choosing it to be distributed to. For example, a popular British show called The Inbetweeners is not available in certain countries such as the US. The Exhibition is the process which is next, this will be how the company decides to show off this film through events. This can be through events such as premium screenings which may then relate to the marketing side as this can be a clever way to gain attention to the production. Vertical Intergration/Monopolization is the process of where another company in another sector may be making much higher profits than one company and they decide to buyout the company/partner which is doing better than them in order to receive the large amount of profit which they are gaining. This is a clever and very tactical move as it means they will be receiving all the money which the other company is getting, therefore meaning they will gain more profits all round. Horizontal Intergration is the same process however, instead of buying out/ partnering with another sector in order to increase profits, they will buy another company in the same sector to ensure that their sector is the strongest and is making most profit. This would be if a company from the production industry buys out another production company. In comparison to Vertical, which is  buying out a company from another sector. This can be production companies buying out marketing companies.

Sources of funding:

The Licence Fee-

This is commonly used by the BBC. The BBC found selling their audience out to advertising and sponsorship's as vulgar, as instead they then made their audience pay for licences to be able to view their content which allows them to produce their content on their channels without and advertising.

Subscriptions-

Subscriptions are where you pay a certain amount of money over a period of time. This may be through viewing platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime or NowTV. A subscription can be used for almost anything that uses a continuous payment system. This is where people never stop paying for something. They will pay smaller amounts usually each month in able to view their content. This can be tricky when it comes to contracts as some subscriptions can come with some terms that may mean viewers will have to keep this subscription for a certain amount of time.

One off payment to Product-

This is fairly self explanatory as the name near enough describes what it is. This is where you pay once for a product in order to own it. This can be through products such as DVD's CD's and most physical products. However, there are certain viewing platforms and companies such as apple which allow you to purchase films on their own stores and view them as much as you wish to.

Pay Per View-

This source of funding is often very common among big sporting events such as boxing. This is where the viewer will pay to be able to view the event once. This will be usually on the TV and will be view able until the event has finished,

Sponsorship's-

Sponsorships are where companies will pay someone to be associated with their production/company/business/organisation and will be advertised alongside it. As mentioned earlier, Manchester United is a football team which is payed by Chevrolet to appear on their kit and shown to be associated with Man Utd. This is beneficial to have a sponsorship as not only do they get paid by them, they may also give them perks such as discounts and freebies from their company which may further represent their company.

Advertising-

Advertising is a good way of funding as there are always productions and businesses that want more recognition. Bigger News corporations such as ITV will often sell spots in between their shows and content for a high price. As ITV is a very popular company it means that they are able to charge more for an advertising spot and will charge more based on what time you wish to advertise and how long you wish to show it for. This charge may go up based upon what show they wish to put it between. If it is placed between the breaks/intervals of a very popular show, it is very likely that this will cost a lot more to advertise in this spot. This can be very helpful for companies that solely rely on funding from their adverts such as ITV.

Product Placements-

 This can be a very good way of funding film productions such as James Bond. James Bond used aston martin as a product placement. This is where they purposely show a product in a film in order to promote it to the viewers. This will increase the recognition for this product and will often increase the audience size. This can transfer some of the audience from the film industry to the audience for their products.

Private Capitals-

Private capitals are more commonly known as private investors. These private investors invest money into films them feel will become popular. These will often be films that are previously or well known to be popular such as the Marvel films. Plenty of private investors will put millions into these films and will gain a larger return from the large amount of profit which these films make. However, not all films are a sure thing and some investors will often lose a large amount of money.

Crowd Funding-

This is a funding method in which the production company will ask for the general public to put small funds into helping their production fund their production. This is a popular method for smaller and upcoming short films/shows. This is most popularly used over the internet with virtual donations. A popular website for this is kick-starter.

Development Funding-

Development funding is a source of funding in which big companies like the British health lottery will put money into increasing the size and development of the British film industry. Sometimes even certain charities will but money into the British film industry.