DEFINE THE MAJOR MEDIA INDUSTRY SECTORSZARA YAFFE

Task 1 Understand the structure and ownership of the media sector

FILM INDUSTRYThe film industry is one of the highest grossing sectors in all of media. It has anything to do with films. This includes the editing, the actual filming, lighting, directing, script writing, actors and actresses and prop making. There are films made independently such as Channel 4 films, which are generally only broadcasted on Channel 4, or films made on a wider scale such as the Warner Brothers, which are shown online, in cinemas, on DVD or on television.

Only 9% of independent films made up the total box office. 47% of the people working in the film industry are freelance workers, meaning they work on their own terms. Films can disappear from the box office and then make another appearance if they have been re-released, such as the 1975 film, Titanic, which was remade in 2012 as a 3D film, and regained its position as top spot on the highest grossing of all films in the UK again.

RADIO INDUSTRYThe radio industry is a generic term for any companies or public service providers that appear on, or are involved with, the radio for broadcasting. There are two main types of radio broadcasters; public service broadcasters and commercial broadcasters. Public service broadcasters are usually the BBC radio stations. Public service broadcasters have no adverts and are fully paid for by the public in our TV license fee. They have a large range of different stations in order to gain the greatest audience of all demographic ranges so that they can give something to everyone. For example, BBC Asian Network or BBC Radio 4, which are totally different. Other radio stations, such as Kiss FM, Heart, Key 103, Capital FM, Magic and Smooth, are privately owned. This means they have to play adverts in order to gain money, rather than public radio stations in which we pay for. They usually have a certain genre on each station, or changing genres depending on the time of day and who the target audience of that time are. The radio industry produce shows to broadcast on the radio to listeners. In many areas, the most popular station is the most local one, eg Salford City Radio, although these local ones are much smaller. Jobs in the radio industry include the public relations officer, radio broadcast journalist, radio presenter and radio station manager – although there are many more.

VIDEO GAMES INDUSTRY

The video games industry is sometimes referred to as the interactive entertainment industry and is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. It’s anything that appears in video games, including the video games themselves. This industry is the economic sector in media involved with the marketing, development and sales of video games. The first video game ever created was said to have been made in the early 1950s when students in computer science research started making simple designs using simulations, games and artificial intelligence programmes. Video games didn’t become mainstream popular until the 1970s and 1980s when gaming consoles, computer gaming and arcade video games became available to the general public. In 2014, there are 8 generations of video gaming consoles including the Nintendo Wii and the Playstation. Jobs in the video games industry include This could include the animator, audio engineer, level editor and the technical artist. Video games can be on a range of devices from apps on a phone to computers on online gaming.

TELEVISION INDUSTRYThe television industry is big in the UK, mainly due to the three main television broadcasters; BBC, Sky and ITV. These main 3 television broadcasters have programs or channels to suit everyone’s taste in one way or another. Whether it’s cooking, animals, news, films, cartoons, documentaries, series shows, sitcoms or reality, these 3 main channels will have something for everyone. The television industry is anything that is broadcasted on television, which can include films, music, cartoons, documentaries or series shows. This large industry is decreasing in size due to its competitors – netflix and online streaming which can be done on either computer, tablet or mobile phone. The television industry is suffering due to the fact that an individual can find most television programs or films somewhere else so they don’t need to watch it on television at that time when it’s on. Although television should never really fully go out of date, the viewers it gets will certainly decrease. Jobs on the television include costume designer, script supervisor and a TV presenter – although there are many more that have not been mentioned.

PRINT INDUSTRYThe print industry is reproducing images and text using a master form or template. The main big industries that use printing are newspapers and magazines. Both of these two things are used to either bring news to the reader, or entertainment. Things such as current affairs are printed, as are fashion updates. Printing is anything that we read, buy and see in print (on paper). Magazines print usually in order to entertain, having almost at least one magazine to suit a type of person. All magazines and newspapers have target audience and are mainly sold to these target audiences as they know how to gain their attention, although not every single magazine that is aimed at 25 year olds will only get the attention of 25 year olds. The target audience is only approximate not accurate. Newspapers are more informative with news than magazines as they are more often daily than weekly, whereas magazines are more often weekly than daily and so magazines can’t quite keep up to date with everything daily if it’s only weekly. The companies involved in this include newspapers such as The Sun and The Guardian and magazines such as OK and Hello.

ADVERTISING & MARKETING INDUSTRYThe advertising and marketing industry is any aspect to do with advertising companies or products. Most companies advertise their products to target the biggest audience they possibly can. In order to recruit the highest audience a product or company possibly can, they will need to advertise. If advertisement was not done, the public would not find out about most products and therefore would not see the benefits of buying something they have only seen on a shelf compared to seeing an advertisement of what the product on the shelf does and how it compares and contrasts to other similar products. Certain things would need to be advertised differently to others, for example a new lipstick. This would need to be researched in order to find out what time most women would be watching television, what channel and during which program in order to gain the attention of women wanting to buy lipstick. Although with a playhouse, research would need to be done on children to see what’s the most popular time for a child to watch television, during which program and also what channel in order for them to see this playhouse and ask their parents for it. Advertisement can be done on television, newspapers, magazines, social media and even radio. Both marketing and advertising is key for a company to do well in business, advertisement is best to get the product out there to the public whereas marketing will deal with the prices, design and size of the product. Jobs within the advertising sector of media include advertising copywriter and advertising media buyer, although there are many more which I have not mentioned.

PRESSThis is anyone that works for the press, not only newspapers but also news channels, news in print, magazines, photographers, any aspect of the press. This can include newspapers such an The Sun or magazines such as Heat. Anybody can work for the press industry if they want to work as something like paparazzi, where they can work freelance, for example, where a person can sell pictures they may have taken of celebrities to a magazine company so that they can then put them into their magazine articles. If we all share news then we can all become part of the press. The public do have an impact on the press. We are decreasing the amount of professional paparazzi there are due to our mobile phones, cameras, tablets and iPads. We, the public, are able to take pictures of celebrities if we see them out and about much more than people were able to 10 years ago, and so the paparazzi are losing their jobs due to this. Though we do this on a much smaller scale, we take pictures, ask questions and also tell gossip with celebrities when we see them – almost taking the press’ jobs from them. Distribution of information that newspapers and magazines want to see can be seen anywhere written by the general public, such as Facebook, Twitter, comments on news articles and Reddit. Social media has a big impact on the press as everybody has a voice and can write whatever they choose as long as it doesn’t disobey the law. People like Katie Hopkins are only so famous due to social media, where they can aggravate other Twitter users in order to gain publicity, which then, if she’s gone too far, gets put in newspapers the next day. Not only are the general public part of the press, social media websites are too.