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.