Understanding structure and ownership in the creative media sector
This chapter of the online information guide will explain the structure and ownership of different sectors of the media industry like Film,TV,Radio , Publishing, Advertising and marketing, Animation, Interactive Media, Games and Photo Imaging.
Film
The film industry is possibly the biggest entertainment industries in the world it employs millions of people all around the world. In the UK alone the film industry employed about 27,000 people in 2008 and this number has surely increased since then. The industry is mainly funded through privately owned companies like Sony and Warner Brothers. There are 6 main stages in the film industry.
Development - Development is where the idea gets thought of and pitched at the rest of the crew.
Pre Production - Is the script/Story board writing
Production - Is the actual shooting of the film
Post Production - Is editing the film whether that be Sound effects/ colour correction.
Distribution - Is giving the film to the cinema companies
Exhibition - Is the stage when the audience actually see the film
Disney is one of the largest Film companies in the world no matter where you are in the world people will know who Disney are, They bought out Lucasfilm and in turn gained the licence to Lucasfilm's biggest franchise ,Star Wars. They bought the franchise in 2012 and have already brought out a new star wars film in 2015 in Mid December, in the short 3 weeks that it was out it managed to be the highest grossing film in 2015 even though it was out for less than a month in 2015.
Film
The film industry is possibly the biggest entertainment industries in the world it employs millions of people all around the world. In the UK alone the film industry employed about 27,000 people in 2008 and this number has surely increased since then. The industry is mainly funded through privately owned companies like Sony and Warner Brothers. There are 6 main stages in the film industry.
Development - Development is where the idea gets thought of and pitched at the rest of the crew.
Pre Production - Is the script/Story board writing
Production - Is the actual shooting of the film
Post Production - Is editing the film whether that be Sound effects/ colour correction.
Distribution - Is giving the film to the cinema companies
Exhibition - Is the stage when the audience actually see the film
Disney is one of the largest Film companies in the world no matter where you are in the world people will know who Disney are, They bought out Lucasfilm and in turn gained the licence to Lucasfilm's biggest franchise ,Star Wars. They bought the franchise in 2012 and have already brought out a new star wars film in 2015 in Mid December, in the short 3 weeks that it was out it managed to be the highest grossing film in 2015 even though it was out for less than a month in 2015.
TV
The TV industry is another huge creative media sector.
The TV industry is structured in a similar way as the film industry.
Development - Is where the idea for the TV show gets thought of and developed
Pre Production - Is where the script/storyboard is created
Production - is where the show gets shot.
Post Production - Is editing the TV Show.
Distribution - Is giving the Show to the Broadcasting company
Exhibition - is where the critics / audience see the Show for the first time.
A huge part of the TV industry in the UK is the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)
The BBC has an array of channels on our screens ranging from Programs for adults to teens to even children. BBC reaches a huge amount of people as shown by the graph below.
BBC is publicly owned by the. as we pay our TV license and they get their funding from that, because of this BBC does not show adverts during their programs.
Radio
The Radio industry is often considered on the same level as the TV industry however not as many people listen to the radio than people who watch TV. The BBC also has a host of radio stations, and they alone employ 1,300 people on staff contracts in the radio sector. They also have a lot of freelance workers working for them.
Artist/Record Label - Without the artist and their labels then there would be no music for the stations to play
Main Radio Stations - The main radio stations will sometimes be the ones to popularize the music.
Local/Community Radio Stations - Local radio stations or community stations (they are called both) are the small radio stations that are often limited to a certain area or region. Some of them work for non-profit.
Publishing
Publishing is the process of making pieces of literature , music and general information widely available to the public. Main examples of big companies in the publishing business consists of Empire Magazine. According to CreativeSkillset.org The UK alone employ 27,000 people in Book Publishing alone, whereas another 200,000 work in the other areas of the publishing sector.
The book publishing industry is structured in a pretty simple way. It goes through 4 different groups of people.
The Publishers - The people who will put their brand on the book
The Printers - The people who print the book onto the hard back
The Distributors - The people who give the books to the different stores/libraries
The Booksellers - The people who will sell the book to the public.
People can go through book publishers in the business, however there are also a lot of people who self publish and work independently, this can be a great advantage because the publisher can sometimes tell you to change certain things in your work and if you self publish then you won't have to worry about that. A major disadvantage is the price that it will cost to self publish your work, if the book isn't a very good seller then the self publisher could get themselves into a lot of debt.
Advertising & Marketing
Marketing & Advertising is a vital part of most parts of the creative media sector. Without Marketing & Advertising then the products that most of these media sectors won't get any publicity, there products will most likely fail and in the end could lead to some big consequences for them in the future.
Client - The client is the person who created the product.
Agency - The agency will be the ones who will create the marketing campaign and decide what will be in the campaign
Media - The media are the ones who air the marketing campaign on either TV, Radio Newspapers and more.
Target audience - The agencies should take a look at the target audience and include things that they like into the campaign.
The advertising & Marketing industry will always try and keep up with the current trends so they seem relevant, especially if they are aiming the campaign towards the younger audience as they are more impressionable when it comes to brands. If a music artist aims their music at younger people their marketing campaign will include them wearing popular clothing and using popular gadgets so the young people will look at the artist and see them using popular brands and think they look cool so their music might be good as well.
Animation
Animation is a well loved part of the creative media sector, the UK has produced classic animated TV shows like Wallace and Gromit. The animation industry employs 4,600 people in the UK.
The animation industry is also structured similarly to the film and TV industry.
Pre Production - Where the idea for the animation is thought off and story boards are written up
Creating - If it is clay based animation then the clay figure will have to be created before the filming
Production - The filming will take place and any voices of the characters will be recorded.
Post Production - This is where the editing will happen and any character voices will added to the footage.
Distribution - This is where the film/TV show is given to the companies that will air the animation
Exhibition - This is finally where the critics and later the general public can view the finished product
A big part of the worldwide animation industry is Disney. Disney is a great example of a conglomerate in the creative media sector. A conglomerate in media is when a big company (Disney) owns a lot of smaller companies that produce products for different sector of media (Pixar). Pixar was an animation company owned by one of Apple's co founders Steve Jobs until 2007 when Disney bought Pixar for $7.4 Billion.
Interactive Media
Interactive Media normally refers to products and services on digital computer systems which responds to the user's actions by presenting other content like text, moving images or animations. Basically every time you use a computer, Games Console or Smartphone and you press a button and it leads you away and you are taken to another screen with another piece of content. That is interactive media. A good example of interactive media are Video Games. Players use controllers or keyboards to respond to moving graphics and interact with the virtual world around them.
Games
The UK has always had a big part to play in the gaming industry. In 2013 the UK games industry was worth around £3.9 BILLION. A UK games company has also released the biggest game in the history of gaming. GTA (Grand Theft Auto) V is the most successful entertainment product of all time (including movies). it grossed $1 billion in just 3 days and became the fastest selling game ever.
The Gaming industry is structured like this
Development - Where the game is actually made
Publishing - Where the game gets advertised and the marketing campaign is created
Distribution - Where they sort out the logistics of the game and deliveries to the stores/customers
Retail - Where the stores can start to sell the game
Consumer - The audience can finally get their hands on the game
A big thing in the Games industry are licences, for example, as I've already mentioned GTA V i will make another example from it. Rockstar Games owns the licence to the entire GTA franchise. So if anyone else tries to make an unofficial GTA game without the permission of Rockstar then they can be sued for a lot of money.
Photo Imaging
The Photo Imaging industry is possibly the least recognized sector of the creative media industry as a whole. The photography industry is made up of over 8,000 different companies. A lot of photographers in the UK are freelance workers. Another part of the Photo Imaging industry is photo manipulation. Photo Manipulation is using programs like Adobe Photoshop to 'retouch' an existing photograph to make it look better, this is popular when it comes to wedding photographs. Everyone wants their wedding pictures to be flawless so if anything is wrong in the background then they will often retouch the photo in Photoshop and make it look like everything was perfect.
The Photo imaging industry is a great place for independent workers to thrive. The main company in the photo imaging industry is Kodak it has a huge market share of the photo imaging industry. However most companies in the photo imaging industry are independent sometimes it is just one person. If the person knows a lot of people and can get their name out there to the world then the Photo Imaging sector can be a great place for independent workers to make a living.
The TV industry is another huge creative media sector.
The TV industry is structured in a similar way as the film industry.
Development - Is where the idea for the TV show gets thought of and developed
Pre Production - Is where the script/storyboard is created
Production - is where the show gets shot.
Post Production - Is editing the TV Show.
Distribution - Is giving the Show to the Broadcasting company
Exhibition - is where the critics / audience see the Show for the first time.
A huge part of the TV industry in the UK is the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)
The BBC has an array of channels on our screens ranging from Programs for adults to teens to even children. BBC reaches a huge amount of people as shown by the graph below.
Radio
The Radio industry is often considered on the same level as the TV industry however not as many people listen to the radio than people who watch TV. The BBC also has a host of radio stations, and they alone employ 1,300 people on staff contracts in the radio sector. They also have a lot of freelance workers working for them.
Artist/Record Label - Without the artist and their labels then there would be no music for the stations to play
Main Radio Stations - The main radio stations will sometimes be the ones to popularize the music.
Local/Community Radio Stations - Local radio stations or community stations (they are called both) are the small radio stations that are often limited to a certain area or region. Some of them work for non-profit.
Publishing
Publishing is the process of making pieces of literature , music and general information widely available to the public. Main examples of big companies in the publishing business consists of Empire Magazine. According to CreativeSkillset.org The UK alone employ 27,000 people in Book Publishing alone, whereas another 200,000 work in the other areas of the publishing sector.
The book publishing industry is structured in a pretty simple way. It goes through 4 different groups of people.
The Publishers - The people who will put their brand on the book
The Printers - The people who print the book onto the hard back
The Distributors - The people who give the books to the different stores/libraries
The Booksellers - The people who will sell the book to the public.
People can go through book publishers in the business, however there are also a lot of people who self publish and work independently, this can be a great advantage because the publisher can sometimes tell you to change certain things in your work and if you self publish then you won't have to worry about that. A major disadvantage is the price that it will cost to self publish your work, if the book isn't a very good seller then the self publisher could get themselves into a lot of debt.
Advertising & Marketing
Marketing & Advertising is a vital part of most parts of the creative media sector. Without Marketing & Advertising then the products that most of these media sectors won't get any publicity, there products will most likely fail and in the end could lead to some big consequences for them in the future.
Client - The client is the person who created the product.
Agency - The agency will be the ones who will create the marketing campaign and decide what will be in the campaign
Media - The media are the ones who air the marketing campaign on either TV, Radio Newspapers and more.
Target audience - The agencies should take a look at the target audience and include things that they like into the campaign.
The advertising & Marketing industry will always try and keep up with the current trends so they seem relevant, especially if they are aiming the campaign towards the younger audience as they are more impressionable when it comes to brands. If a music artist aims their music at younger people their marketing campaign will include them wearing popular clothing and using popular gadgets so the young people will look at the artist and see them using popular brands and think they look cool so their music might be good as well.
Animation
Animation is a well loved part of the creative media sector, the UK has produced classic animated TV shows like Wallace and Gromit. The animation industry employs 4,600 people in the UK.
The animation industry is also structured similarly to the film and TV industry.
Pre Production - Where the idea for the animation is thought off and story boards are written up
Creating - If it is clay based animation then the clay figure will have to be created before the filming
Production - The filming will take place and any voices of the characters will be recorded.
Post Production - This is where the editing will happen and any character voices will added to the footage.
Distribution - This is where the film/TV show is given to the companies that will air the animation
Exhibition - This is finally where the critics and later the general public can view the finished product
A big part of the worldwide animation industry is Disney. Disney is a great example of a conglomerate in the creative media sector. A conglomerate in media is when a big company (Disney) owns a lot of smaller companies that produce products for different sector of media (Pixar). Pixar was an animation company owned by one of Apple's co founders Steve Jobs until 2007 when Disney bought Pixar for $7.4 Billion.
Interactive Media
Interactive Media normally refers to products and services on digital computer systems which responds to the user's actions by presenting other content like text, moving images or animations. Basically every time you use a computer, Games Console or Smartphone and you press a button and it leads you away and you are taken to another screen with another piece of content. That is interactive media. A good example of interactive media are Video Games. Players use controllers or keyboards to respond to moving graphics and interact with the virtual world around them.
Games
The UK has always had a big part to play in the gaming industry. In 2013 the UK games industry was worth around £3.9 BILLION. A UK games company has also released the biggest game in the history of gaming. GTA (Grand Theft Auto) V is the most successful entertainment product of all time (including movies). it grossed $1 billion in just 3 days and became the fastest selling game ever.
The Gaming industry is structured like this
Development - Where the game is actually made
Publishing - Where the game gets advertised and the marketing campaign is created
Distribution - Where they sort out the logistics of the game and deliveries to the stores/customers
Retail - Where the stores can start to sell the game
Consumer - The audience can finally get their hands on the game
A big thing in the Games industry are licences, for example, as I've already mentioned GTA V i will make another example from it. Rockstar Games owns the licence to the entire GTA franchise. So if anyone else tries to make an unofficial GTA game without the permission of Rockstar then they can be sued for a lot of money.
Photo Imaging
The Photo Imaging industry is possibly the least recognized sector of the creative media industry as a whole. The photography industry is made up of over 8,000 different companies. A lot of photographers in the UK are freelance workers. Another part of the Photo Imaging industry is photo manipulation. Photo Manipulation is using programs like Adobe Photoshop to 'retouch' an existing photograph to make it look better, this is popular when it comes to wedding photographs. Everyone wants their wedding pictures to be flawless so if anything is wrong in the background then they will often retouch the photo in Photoshop and make it look like everything was perfect.
The Photo imaging industry is a great place for independent workers to thrive. The main company in the photo imaging industry is Kodak it has a huge market share of the photo imaging industry. However most companies in the photo imaging industry are independent sometimes it is just one person. If the person knows a lot of people and can get their name out there to the world then the Photo Imaging sector can be a great place for independent workers to make a living.
