Media organizations employ others to produce content like advertising, radio programs, and music. They are large businesses that own major newspapers and radio stations. Media is a commercial industry where organizations generate income and profits. How media is produced depends on its political economy, including ownership, regulation, and the interests of individuals and companies. Audiences are considered a commodity that is sold to advertisers. Media organizations use branding and synergies between properties to increase profits. The industry faces high fixed costs and benefits from economies of scale.

1. Mass Communication & Media
Literacy 11

2. The business of media
 Do Coca Cola, Gap, HSBC produce their advertising
copy directly or do they employ somebody to do it for
them?
 Who do they employ?
 Who made the radio programmes and music that
you listen to?
 Who owns the Sun, the Guardian, Le Figaro, El Pais?
 What kind of organisation lie behind them?
 How can you find out?
 Who paid for the music playing on the radio?

3. Media in the
UK: Who owns
what?
http://www.mediauk.co
m/tv

4. And how’s it
doing?
http://www.google.com
/finance?q=LON%3AB
SY
Media giants in the US
http://www.pbs.org/wg
bh/pages/frontline/sho
ws/cool/giants/

5. The business of media
 The significance of media organisations as organisations and
businesses can often be seen when they themselves are the subject of
news stories.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=rupert+murdock+takeover&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-
a#hl=en&expIds=17259,22104,27955&xhr=t&q=news+corp+takeover+of+bskyb&cp=8&pf=p&sclient=psy&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=5u3&rls=org.mozilla:en-
GB%3Aofficial&aq=0&aqi=&aql=&oq=news+corp+takeover&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=f8d6fd944fbe01e9

6. The business of media
 The current organisation of the media is neither obvious
nor inevitable
 There’s substantial variety in the nature of the organisations that
produce media
 It’s not always clear who made what
 But all media organisations are businesses involved in a
commercial sphere of exchange – of income generation,
of profit and loss.
 The economics of media applies as much to not-for profit
media organisations as it does to for profit organisations
 We MUST think about the economic environment in
which media are produced

7. Studying media organisations
1. Political economy
2. Organisation approach
3. Cultural approach

8. Political economy
 The nature of production and the conditions under
which it takes place
 Where does economic value lie?
 Where is value generated?
 How are economic markets managed
 Are markets regulated?
 How do the vested interests of individuals impact?

9. Mosco 1996:
25
http://bit.ly/hE2OKQ

10. Political economy
 What is the relationship between a range of meanings
available in media and the underpinning economic
interests and ownership patterns across different media
spheres:
 The press, Music, TV, Film, Radio, Advertising, The internet
 Who pays for media at the point of production?
 What is the primary commodity of any medium?
 How do consumers pay for this commodity and for the
different economic activities of the media?

11. Critical political economy
Power
 How do government oversee media management and
regulation?
 How does a capitalist economy underwrite the profit
impulse of media businesses?

12. Political
economy: to
read
Library copy at:
http://bit.ly/h28Q5J
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJuqoDvyX
Ok

13. Media and the free market
Free market. (2011, January 12). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:00, January 12, 2011, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Free_market&oldid=407475375

14. Media and the free market
 Sir Richard Branson's Virgin media empire has
helped to make him Britain's wealthiest television
and film entrepreneur, with a fortune of £2,600m,
according to The Sunday Times Rich List 2010.
 How does the free market explain such wealth?

15. Economic value
 Media products differ from other products because
of the combination of the way they generate revenue
and in the ways they are consumed
 Revenue can come from:
 The final consumer in the form of some kind of payment
 Selling space in the artefact to advertisers

16. Audiences as commodity
 Media do not produce ‘products’
 Media produce audiences
 The pessimistic view – we’re included in a group
whose interests we don’t share or we get nothing
because we are not attractive enough to advertisers
 The optimistic view – we get products and
experiences that are sharply targeted to our tastes
and interests

17. From product to brand
 In order to control for uncertainties in the commodity
relations (risky or safe?) media use forms of branding to
better predict consumer consumption.
 The importance of branding + synergy (from the Greek =
together + work)
 Synergy is used by media industries to work together to
generate greater audiences, publicity, sales and profits
 New film is released ... What happens?
 Who coordinates all this activity?

18. Costs
 Traditionally, high fixed costs and low marginal costs
(music studio + repeated prints)
 Economies of scale are vital
 Now ... New publishing paradigm
 New production technologies
 New distribution technologies

19. Size and concentration
 Concentration
 Measures the degree to which control of a particular sector of
media is in the hands of the most dominant firms. It is usually
measured as the percentage of the revenue received by the
largest 5 or 10 firms
 Monopoly and Oligopoly
 Monopoly describes a condition in which one company or
seller has control over the entire market. An oligopoly
describes a condition in which sellers are few. This results in
the actions of any one of them affecting the market price as
well as their competitors.

20. The
Corporation
On YouTube
http://bit.ly/ffO2Dc

21. Models of distribution
Vertical integration
V
Net Neutrality