Job Letter

To whom it may concern,

I'd like to congratulate you on your most recent advertisement for an 'Apprentice Digital Video Production Producer' in which your company were looking for specific applicants who could fulfil your requirements, my reason for congratulating you is for your poor acknowledgement of equality, contractual, legal and ethical issues which have arisen in the advertisement. I've come to the understanding that you have tried to make this a reasonable advertisement, but have failed dramatically in various areas. I'd like to point out that contracts are what you are obligated to give to every employer, these consist of the rights and the terms of the company, usually having to sign the contract in terms of agreement, though you are being very explicit with your requirements in the way you wish to go about the whole topic. In a contract you would agree on such terms such as hours of work and the salary, whereas with your advertisement you have mentioned how the employer may get between 10-45 hours per week and this is far too broad, linking into contractual agreements and also The Equality Act (2010) states that two people applying for the same job with same experiences and qualifications must have similar salary and hours, but your advert implies that no matter what skill set level you are, you could be on minimal hours at an odd salary/wage. You have therefore already begun to make your own terms that are not suitable for someone to work with/into.

This advert heavily breaches various codes, like The Equality Act as it specifies you must not discriminate against age, gender and race when employing your staff. But you mentioned in you advertisement that you are looking for staff that are below the age of thirty, this is quite outrageous as people over the age of thirty are just as capable of handling the job that you have requested. Not only that but you then later go on to say that this person must have Christian religious views and then make an asterisk to the bottom of the page enforcing that you should promote the views onto others, not only is that absurd but that's breaching the equality act in so many ways, you can't hire someone due to there religion because that affects nothing in the company and is just plain unfair. The only allowance to hire someone due to there age is if you are seeking a role that requires someone of that age, such as a child for a specific role.

Moving onto the employers' liability and their rights in context to the proposed video, the people that were acting or that had been sought out to do this video would not be covered in any way unless you were a hired employee. The employers' liability is a kind of insurance that will keep you protected in any accidents, which leads onto the health and safety issues, as no one would be covered but you still expect us to go on and film 'Male offenders and female victims'. Firstly what an earth are you doing stereotyping such a sensitive subject matter? Secondly, what dim witted people would want to go ahead and follow these appalling guidelines? I find it hard to even think that you can justify that statement as you want people to make a short documentary that way. Though having said this, there are Trade unions out there who are out to help such people who can be covered if an accident occurs. Currently the yearly fee stands at £120, but there are a lot of further legal terms that go into if you had been hired and how you would be covered, such as if something was to happen to the film maker they wouldn't be covered as they aren't under your employment and not covered, though this is only because they would be classed as an applicant rather than an employer.

There are certain guidelines that tend to be followed when making an advertisements and these are a kinds of codes of practice and each institution has a set of policies and procedures individual to their company that are passed onto applicants to not cause legal issues. The problem with your advert is that you wish for teenagers to be interviewed and they are under eighteen, not only is that insensitive but that is not allowed due to the fact that there are under the age of eighteen, unless they have signed consent from there parents but the point is that these sexual acts shouldn't be discussed about with teenagers due to being such a sensitive topic and the matter of them being under age for data protection. Moving onto representation, this is another important factor that could have changed the views people may have had on the applicant, like in media, things change so drastically as they set out to target and pinpoint certain opinions onto people (usually celebrities) and opinions from the audience can change instantly after reading what the media has said. The fact you used the male offenders and female victims is a prime example of this happening if it was shown, as not only is this a poor stereotype but it is well known that females can be the offenders too.

Legal issues are important as well and this is helped to be covered by certain regulatory bodies that are in place to help stop the problems occurring in the advertisement, a prime example of this is Ofcom. Ofcom sets standards for British Broadcasting (as a kind of media regulator) and it exists because of the Communications Act (2003) and The Broadcasting Act (1990). There are also things where a broadcasting code that is in place to effectively make sure that there rules are based on the law to protect the audience. These help to further keep the protection of people alongside The Equality Act and others. The BBC Trust is a code of practice which is entirely dedicated to the BBC company. When setting an example to this, I think of the protection and harm of the people below the age of eighteen and when looking at the broadcasting code it states that:

"Broadcasters must ensure that material broadcast after the watershed which contains images and/or language of a strong or explicit sexual nature, but is not 'adult sex material' as defined in Rule 1.18 above, is justified by the context."

This is a quote from a section from Ofcom about protecting under eighteens in the regards to a sexual nature, this rule is her to enforce that they are not harmed by images that could be on before the watershed time. I find it interesting though how you want to go even further but purposely show high school pupils a documentary about the 'No Date No Rape' campaign, and this is just obscene. Which makes me lead nicely onto my next point about the Obscene Publications Act (1959) which was put in place to strengthen the law and to prevent any obscene deemed material to be broadcast such as your so called 'documentary' you wish applicants to make. Thinking about the fact that this might be a sensitive subject matter, it would be difficult to classify it with a specific certificate, I personally think that it would be given it a 15. The reason for this is that the matter is sensitive and not only that but if there are re enactments and dramatisations then this could be seen in a sexual context and based on the rule below, I feel it should be given an 15 as these are likely things to happen in the re enactments. The BBFC is an independent body which classifies films in terms of age suitability.

"Sexual activity may be briefly and discreetly portrayed. Moderate sex references are permitted, but frequent crude references are unlikely to be acceptable." [...] "There may be moderate violence but it should not
dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood, but occasional gory moments may be permitted if justified by the context. Sexual violence may only be implied or briefly and discreetly indicated, and its depiction must be justified by context."

The Intellectual Property Law is a law which results from expression of an idea, it can be bought, own or sold and also leads me onto copyright as there is a huge issue with it in ongoing media, especially with music, but you've bettered that by playing a 'popular music soundtrack' alongside the documentary which can seemingly emphasise the emotions of the audience. The problem here though is you're paying the applicant twenty pounds for this song that is likely copyrighted, therefore you're unable to show it to people and could be sued a lot more than twenty pounds, this is just outrageous and you can't get a soundtrack to be applied that easily (unless you know the person and they allowed you) but it's likely to be a copyrighted song.

Finally, I think you realise your own conclusion, that your advertisement is just disgraceful in various ways that I have pointed out, I'd hope for you to realise your mistakes in creating this and either correct them, or find something better to do with your time then discriminate against others.

Yours Sincerely,

           Lauren Kellett

Ownership and Funding

There are various ways in which ownership and funding can be done across television, and this all depends on how your company goes about things and the company itself. There are various factors that lead to different types of ownership within the television bracket. Firstly you can look at the Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) which is a company that began on the radio in 1926 and ending up on the TV in 1936, they appeal to be different to normal television because they aim to educate, inform and entertain the audience rather than selling them as a product like other advertisers do and exploiting them. Saying this though, although there may be no selling, they do have a TV licence fee of which was £145.50 last year.

Commercial Broadcasting is a little different as this is set out to entirely to make a profit in the way that companies like ITV, Sky1 and Channel4 sell there audience to the advertising companies. BBC is different in the way that it doesn't have adverts (as mentioned earlier, it doesn't want to exploit its audience). With the other channels they try and sell there audience as that then means that the advertisers will have more views on what they place in those adverts, commercial broadcasting also depends on what time of the day an advert needs to be placed as this will make the slot cost higher in price.

Corporate and Private Ownership are two types of way to describe different companies. Corporate ownership means that it is a company not owned by individuals, it can be classed as a commercial or PSB, and is listed as a public company. A prime example of this is news corporations. On the other hand, there are private ownership's which is self explanatory as the company is owned by an individual.

Global Companies are quite simple to understand as they are companies that own themselves to a lot of places, when I mean own, I mean that they are well known, for instance Disney, it is a multinational company that is built in more than one location. Not only is Disney known for just being Disney but it is so wide that it's expanding itself into other companies by buying more such as Lucas Arts and Pixar, this is a prime example of a global company because no matter where you go you will here about Disney and most people will know what it is.




Concentration of Ownership is a term that initially describes that have the media world is owned y few companies (around 90%) and this makes it harder for competition because these companies own a lot of platforms across various stages in the media world making it harder to compete. Some of these companies are Disney and News Corporation.

If you see the image above you can see how there are different variations in the media company, and this is the best way to explain it. When you have such integration it makes it more complex, but having this makes it so that there are companies to be in each section who can then sell and buy other parts to others, this is a smart way to understand the media in which you will make a lot of money from buying and selling. With Warner, there have been banned from owning something in each section because there will be no profit for other companies and therefore it makes it unfair, though Disney have looked into the horizontal integration and bought out various companies (Pixar and Lucas Arts) which then will make more income when distributing to the next part of the diagram, still a very good way of making more money and I think that the diagram is the best explanation.

After looking at the terms of ownership there are also various ways in which funding can be done, the most common source of funding, especially within the television company is a licence fee, of which this is paid for to have the permission to watch or record a live television transmission as it is being broadcast. Not only is it required in homes but schools, hospitals and anywhere who is capable of watching the broadcasts has to hold a television licence. The fee for a television licence between the 1st April 2012 to the 31st March 2013 was £145.50 which works out to be around 40p a day, though all of the money for the licences goes to the BBC and pays for its services. The total income from 2012 to 2013 was £3.6562 and this was used to fund the television, online and radio BBC services.


There are also other ways of funding, such as paying a subscription, this is usually for a period of time where you are bound to a contract with the subscription provider, they are paid for, monthly, yearly or any terms or bases that the provider sets. There are various providers such as Sky, Netflix, Amazon, it all depends on what type of subscription fee you are paying for.



One off payments are what's in place for you to then own the product. This is a very common use in any circumstances where you buy the product. The most common form of one off payments are with DVD's, video games and then you own the product forever.

Pay per view, is similar to one off payments but unlike keeping it forever, you pay for the view, this can be obtained in various ways such as Amazon Instant Video where you pay for the rental of a film, and this can be for 48 hours or you can buy it, but the pay per view is the renting option. Another form of paying per view is with a cinema ticket, although it may seem a little different, you pay for the one off ticket to see the allocated film.


Sponsorship is where your program or event or product is sponsored by another company or product. A prime example of this is with any program as before after or  at the adverts you see the advert that is sponsoring that program, Britain's Got Talent is well known for having Morrison's sponsor them before and after the program is on. Also X Factor is sponsored by TalkTalk, these are all common things that occur in a sponsorship placement.


Advertising is a really common theme of funding, and all TV programs except the BBC have adverts in between there TV programs, the channels sell there advert slots and use the audience as the selling point as they are basically selling the people who buy the slots there audience, because the more audience on a channel, the more likely it is that your advert will be seen. Each slot is allocated but depending on what time of the day and how long the advert is makes the cost of the slot different, for instance, more expensive slots tend to be around dinner time when it is peak and there are more viewers to be watching television.



Product placement is a really interesting way to get funding as within a program or film or something similar there is your product within it. A really good example which has been on going is James Bond, and in SkyFall (2012) there was product placement with Heineken as they paid $45 million for Bond to drink this (instead of his usual martini) there are also other various types of product placement, but buying the placement is the most common occurrence with films and movies.


Private Capital is a way where people can invest in your product, this kind of funding is done when you find people that are happy to help invest such as friends and family. Not only that but you can also fund for things yourself, this has been done on various occasions, such as with Robert Rodriguez's film El Mariachi (1992) which he funded entirely on his own.


On the other hand, instead of having friends and family invest in you, you can also appeal to have others invest in your idea, people that might find it to be something of interest, and a main way to do this is through crowd funding, which is where any amount by anybody can be invested into your idea. Kickstarter is a well known company to provide this kind of service as in 2009 when it launched it has already achieved over $890 million to fund over 52,000 projects all over the world.

Finally there are development funds which are companies who give money to the media industry that are then specifically given to help with funding for productions that need that little help and the money really, our country has the BFI who get the money from the lottery to give to filmmakers that need the funding.