Essay

The main big companies in the Television

sector are the BBC and ITV. These two
broadcasters are constantly competing
against each other, in order to gain the greatest audience from every
programme that they choose to broadcast.
An example of a privately owned company is ITV. They
are able to broadcast programmes due to the funding
from other companies. Advertisement is vitally
important, as this is where ITV get most of their
funding from. ITV was launched in 1955 as an
Independent Television under the Independent
Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC,
it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK. The company ITV is a
successful TV company as the ratings it averagely get are reasonably high
in comparison to other smaller privately owned companys like channel 5.
Some examples of successful programmes shown on ITV are, X Factor,
Britains Got Talent, Jekyll and Hyde and this is England 90.
ITV owns many other smaller companies form other media
sectors. Firstly, it owns ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 and CITV. It also owns ITV Encore,
launched in June 2014 and ITVBe, launched in October 2014, which are
used for catch up TV and smaller daytimes TV formats.
Working across multiple sectors helps product diversity as it increases the
amount of people that recognise a certain programme. An example is
SYCO, which were across in America on Americas Got Talent and Pop Idol,
but also back in the UK on The X Factor and Britains Got Talent. This has
massively helped product diversity, as a show like the x factor are now
shown in over 147 different countries around the world, clearly making it a
known show across the world.
Having a diverse range of products helps dramatically with income as it
helps the amount of profit made by the TV producer. An example is Mrs
Browns Boy, which are now successful TV shows, films and country-wide
tours. The franchise has become a global phenomenon making a profit of
over 45,000,000 last year, making the BBC a huge amount of profit and a
bigger viewing audience that previously expected, as the show becomes
more popular and in demand, the customer base begins to rise for the
company as more and more people become fans of the TV franchise.
An example of an independent company is Dave, which was launched on 2
October 1998; it is much smaller company in comparison to another
independent company like MTV. In some ways you could argue that Dave
is fairly successful as it airs previous episodes of Top Gear, which is very
popular to many of the viewing audience. Top Gear is a worldwide show
that is hugely popular, and the fact that Dave have the rights to air old

episodes of it, makes it greatly popular with the audience. However,

although Top Gear averagely is watched by 1 million viewers on Dave
other shows respectively have a much smaller viewing audience, making
Dave a lot less successful than other major TV shows. Some example of
Daves own shows are; Argumental, Driving Wars, Money Pit, Storage
Hunters UK, Taskmaster and Undercover.
The main organisation objectives of independent companies are to try and
get sponsors from other countries to fund the television programmes.
Another important thing to consider about independent countries is that
they have to get all their money from sponsorships and advert breaks
during their show. Therefore, the independent company would be more
successful. Independent companies look to challenge other companies
through advertisements and celebrity endorsement. Smaller companies
would usually struggle to compete with the larger companies as they
dont have as big of an audience.
Vertical integration is a form of expansion, which allows the company to
get a better control of market share and the economies of scale. Vertical
integration happens when a company like the BBC decides to expand
control over a specific type of industrys and the entire supply chain. It
also provides a greater level of control over the entire production process;
therefore it results in a lower cost and wastage. An example of vertical
integration is the BBC, as if they want to broadcast a new TV programme
as they own their own terms, which means that money isnt really an
issue as they have their own equipment to make it happen. Another
example of vertical integration would be the successful TV broadcaster
ITV, which has its own studios and production teams, so they can
personally produce the programme mainly on their own, to make
production a lot easier and stress free. The main focus for vertical
integration is showing the possible aspect of takeovers and controlling a
main focus in that production.
Horizontal integration is also a form of expansion, but is when a specific
company acquires or merges with a similar company within the same
specific industry, selling a variety or similar products or providing a fairly
similar service. An example of horizontal integration would be the merger
between Sky Television and the British Satellite Broadcasting to become
BSkyB, it has now become one of the UKs largest digital subscription
television companies. The main focus of horizontal integration is showing
the fact that the two companies are merging together to form one. A
merger can be more successful as two companies can be enforce each
other, and become well together, which can make it more successful to
the viewing audience.
Integration is a good and purposeful thing, as it makes TV broadcasters
more well-known and successful in the media business. The fact that TV
shows can merge together to form a more successful programme is a

more positive aspect as it ensures that the viewing audience for a

programme is higher than before, making the companies more profit as
the audience goes up. Another positive aspect of integration is that more
ideas can be brought together to form a highly successful TV programme.
However, one negative about media integration is that with more people
involved in one project can cause miscommunication between people,
which could become a management problem and could affect the actual
TV broadcasting.
A multination company is a corporation that has other companys in other
countries besides its home country. An example of a TV company
operating in more countries beside the UK is the BBC. The BBC runs
throughout the world with its BBC Worldwide subsidiary. The main two are
BBC Arabic Television and BBC America which are hugely popular, which
makes the BBC franchise even better known, due to its huge viewing
audience across the globe.
A media conglomerate is a large company, which owns lots of smaller
numbers of companies in various mass media such as television, movies,
publishing and the internet. An example of an media conglomerate is the
British Sky Broadcasting Group, which was originally generated in the
shores of England and now generates over $10 billion in revenue every
year and $1.9 billion in profit. This makes one of the most successful
media conglomerates in the UK. Sky is also owned by the 21st Century Fox,
which now has over 10 million subscribers in the UK, making it one of the
largest and most successful satellite broadcasting companies in the
country. By broadcasting a lot of US popular TV shows like, The
Simpsons and Modern Family, it has increased its subscribers
dramatically
Most TV broadcasters now dont charge an annual TV subscription to
watch that TV network. The main license that everyone has to pay is the
TV license, which is for the BBC. An average colour TV license would cost
a household 145.50 annually, which can also be paid for quarterly,
monthly and weekly, depending on how you choose to break down the
cost. However, a black and white TV would cost around 49.00. Other
main TV networks like ITV and Channel 4 dont charge people a TV license,
as they gain most of their money from TV sponsorships and TV
advertisements during programme breaks.
There are a lot of competitors that some TV companies have to fight over;
Sky, BT and Virgin are the main TV companies that have to compete for
their audience. TV competitors constantly have deals and special offers to
try and entice people to join or switch to that TV Company, as they always
want more subscribers than their main rival. TV competitors mainly try to
promote their TV broadcaster through advertisements and sponsorships,
they use celebrity endorsement to make their brand recognisable and
memorable to the viewing audience. An example would be virgin, which

has previously used Usain Bolt and Jessica Ennis-Hill, as a representation

of how fast there network is.
There are many different customer bases that different TV broadcasters
aim towards, as different people are interested in different things. TV
broadcasters like Sky and BT charge their customers monthly, depending
on the package they are subscribed to. However, services like Freeview
broadcast programmes for free, but the variety available is often less than
paid for services.
A lot of TV networks have become globally successful, and have now
generated a huge profit. However, as a company grows the amount of
completion that is surrounding that TV Company grows and becomes
harder to gain new subscribers. BBC is one example of a TV company that
has grown and become hugely successful around the globe, creating BBC
America and BBC Arabic, which have now become majorly successful TV
broadcasters.