This document provides an overview of the Walt Disney Company's structure and ownership. It discusses how Disney has transitioned from being privately owned by Walt Disney to being a large multinational conglomerate through acquisitions of other companies like Marvel Entertainment. Disney operates across many media sectors including films, television, publishing, music, and theme parks. It has a large audience of both children and families. The organizational structure has expanded over time to include divisions for consumer products, studios, parks and resorts, and media networks.

1. Lauren Allard
MEDIA COMPANY CASE
STUDY
TASK 1 UNDERSTAND THE
STRUCTURE AND OWNERSHIP
OF THE MEDIA SECTOR

2. TYPES OF OWNERSHIP: PRIVATE OWNERSHIP
• Describe it and give an example
Private Ownership is owning your own company, the company that you built. There are different
parts of Private Ownership which makes it less of your company.
• Limited Companies – Can be owned by multiple people/owners. And these people are called
directors. (One LTD – One or more directors)
• Sold Traders – A person that owns a business, however if they do not earn more than £40,000
a year they are ordered to change to a limited company.
• A private company is any corporation that does not have shares publicity traded in the in the
equity markets.
(http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/privatecompany.asp)
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of ownership
• Disadvantages – Your company could be taken from you, from one of the directors.
• Advantages – You will be managing you own company.

3. TYPES OF OWNERSHIP: PUBLIC SERVICE
• Describe it and give an example
Privately or Publicly organized firm to provide a public service. This could be an online company
that is available to help every member of the public. The companies can have a public service like
the BBC for an example, The BBC provides news, radio, TV, film etc. for free to use it’s being used
by the public and is providing a service. They provide a helpline available 24 hours a day, after
certain shows there would be a voice over saying “If you have experienced any of the traumatic
events like what was featured in this episode, you can contact our helpline or go online to our
website”
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of ownership
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_broadcasting

4. TYPES OF OWNERSHIP: INDEPENDENT
• Describe it and give an example
An independent company is a company that does not have multiple directors. You are in charge of
your own company and no directors can take control of your company or kick you out and take
over.
For example – A photographer could own his/her own company they are in charge of the entire
company, the finance, the photoshoots, the editing, print orders etc. The company cannot be taken
from the owner. Except for the government.
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of ownership
• Disadvantages – Work is a lot harder. Work piles on with only one person to do it.
• Advantages – No one will be taking over your own company. You cannot be kicked out of your
company.
• (http://thetvroom.com/misc/links-01-70.html)

5. TYPES OF OWNERSHIP: CONGLOMERATE
• Describe it and give an example
Corporation
Multi Nationals (Multi countries) – Multi National companies that are used worldwide for example
companies such as Disney, Apple, Sony, Microsoft etc.
These companies are very well known around the world, the companies make a lot of money
because they are located around the world instead of in one place.
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of ownership
• Disadvantages – The companies could lose control with many directors changing the company,
with it being on the stock market. There is a risk of the company being bought.
• Advantages – Making more money. Being a lot more well known. An increase on sales.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_conglomerate0

6. TYPES OF COMPANIES:
HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION
• Describe it and give an example
Integration (Combined Together) – Two different companies merged together to create the same
product.
Sony and Columbus film studios. Columbus was its own company before Sony had the money and
could afford to buy out Columbus studios, they merged together and created Sony Film.
PC World and Currys were separate tech companies, PC World was making a lot more money
than Currys and the two companies were competitive when it came to prices. PC World and
Currys merged together and created Currys and PC World, a merged store located around the UK.
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of this type of Company
• Disadvantages – The merged company might make a less amount of money after they merged
together.
• Advantages – The company would make a bigger profit after merging.

7. TYPES OF COMPANIES:
VERTICAL INTEGRATION
• Describe it and give an example
This is when an institution has shares or owns each part of the production and distribution process.
For example if a Photographer was working individually, and has his/her own company, and
caught the attention of another company, that company could have the money to get the
photographer to work for them, so whatever images the photographer takes they would go straight
to the company. The company would have hired the photographer making him or her work for
them. The company could then hire an editor, so that the photographer would take the pictures, it
would get sent to the editor who sends the images to the company. As a team, the company would
be making more money and so would the photographer and editor, more than they would when
they worked on their own.
• What are the advantages and disadvantages for this type of Company
• Disadvantages: You could lose control of your own business.
• Advantages: You could make much more money.

8. CROSS MEDIA CONVERGENCE
• What is it, who does and what are the advantages
Convergence: Junction meeting
When two different media meet each other e.g. Old fashion movies (Silent movies), Music merges
with a video – Old fashioned movies started have sound added in, featuring not just the video
being played but music being added in.
Advantages:
• You could receive a wider audience, when two different types of media meet each other, the
fans of the two different types of media notice, and the audience of the new product becomes
popular and more noticeable.

9. SYNERGY
• What is it, who does and what are the advantages
Something that is not media, but is combined with the media. E.g. CD’s, the media would be the
data inside the CD, this is something not media but the data featured inside the CD makes it
Synergy combining it together.

10. DESCRIBE THE STRUCTURE AND OF OWNERSHIP OF
EITHER THE FILM, TV, GAMING OR MUSIC INDUSTRY
• Explain what types of companies there are (horizontal or vertical)
Horizontal: Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Vertical: Warner Bros Entertainment.
• If looking at the music industry look at companies from the “big three” to an independent as
well as subsidiaries.
• Look at who is involved and how it is structured
• This site might help… http://www.planetoftunes.com/industry/industry_structure.htm

11. STICK THE NAME OF YOUR COMPANY HERE
You will choose a media company, film/tv or music and produce a case-
study on that company.
(Choose from, Disney, Apple, Sony (& SyCo), News Corporation, Google
Disney)
• (Start by telling me what media sector it belongs to.)
Disney belongs in most of the media sectors because of the amount of
products it produces.
• What products it produces
Disney produces a lot of media products that make it fit into almost every
sector. It produces Magazines, TV shows and films for younger viewers
and even has it’s own Radio station. But recently Disney has produced the
new Star Wars film aiming this product at a wider audience.
• Whether the company is public/private/independent/conglomerate
etc.….
Disney is a Multi-National company making it known and used worldwide.

12. OWNERSHIP
• Who owns it - has the ownership changed - do they own any other
companies?
Walt Disney was the original owner and creator of Disney when it was
created back in 1923. But since then Walt Disney passed away and
different directors took over the company. Since Disney is a multi national
company is has had many different directors over time.
The current CEO of the Disney Corporation is Bob Igner.
The Disney company now owns part of Marvel film.

13. The Walt Disney company is Horizontally Integrated
because, the company over the years have taken over some
other film and TV companies. In 2009 the Walt Disney
company acquired Marvel Entertainment. In December
2009 the merger was approved and Disney merger with
Marvel Entertainment giving Disney full ownership to
Marvel Entertainment.
How it is organized, i.e. is it vertically or horizontally
integrated.

14. COMPETITORS
• Who are its competitors?
• Twenty First Century Fox
• Time Warner Inc.
• Comcast Corp.
• In terms of competition, what is the impact on production and distribution?
Disney’s competition with other media companies is mainly focused on the TV and
Film sector, the companies listed above are working in both sectors making the
competition larger. Disney owning two theme parks, one in Paris, France and the
other in Florida, USA. Gives the company more money.

15. AUDIENCE
• Who are the customers?
Young Children
Teenagers and most recently adults due to
the new production of the new Star Wars
film, their target audience has expanded.
• Find quotes on how many it has
The Disney Channel Viewers (customers)
was at it’s highest in Autumn 2010 at 41.87
million views.
• What are the demographics, E.G. male female, age, socio economic group.
The Disney audience in age is originally around 0-12 year olds, but over the years
Disney’s target audience has expanded.
The gender audience in the Disney Princess category is mainly female, but movies and TV
shows like Hercules, The Lion King etc. are aimed at a more male audience.
Social Class is different because Disney is originally aimed at a younger audience it would
be aimed at the social class E (Those at the lowest level of substance) because the
products being aimed originally at children.

16. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE.
• What changes in organizational structure have
there been and what were the implications?
The Disney organizational structure splits into four
groups, Disney Consumer Products, Studio
Entertainment, Parks and Resorts and Media
Networks Broadcasting. Since Walt Disney Inc. was
created back in the 1920s, Media Networks
Broadcasting was added, and Parks and Resorts was
added.
• Consider changes in the structure of ITV for
example in the last 10 years, (TV) or of the
acquisition of the EMI record label by Universal.

17. CONTROVERSIES
• Has it had any controversies? ( eg News Corporation and the News Of The World Phone
Hacking Scandal)
The Sony hack back in 2014, brought Disney involved. The hack revealed the secrets inside
Disney’s Marvel Studios.
Complaints made to the Walt Disney company are mainly about their Theme Parks rather than
their Media based products. Complaints about their ‘Rude Staff’.
• Channel 4 with the broadcast of Benefits Street
The TV show Benefits Street follows the daily life of people having the struggles of living on
Benefits. The first episode got hundreds of complaints to Channel 4 and Ofcom. According to the
Guardian newspaper the complaints were about the criminal activities, foul language and
misleading portrayals of welfare claimants.

18. BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Find at least 6 sources of your info - don’t use wikipedia
• Place the list in this order
• Surname, first name, title of book, website, date, place it was published, who it was published
by
• http://www.statista.com/statistics/228939/cable-tv-networks-disney-channel-watched-within-
the-last-7-days-usa/ - Disney Channel viewers statistics.
• http://marketrealist.com/2014/01/disneys-competitors/ - Disney Competitors.
• http://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/aug/31/disney-marvel-buy-out - Disney Horizontal
Integration.

19. UNIT 7 BLOG
• When you have finished your case study, create a blog entitled
• YOUR NAME Unit 7 Understanding the Creative Media Sector
• And post this finished PPT with the title: ‘Task One Structure and ownership of the media
sector’
• Email me your blog address to
paul.rossington@salfordcc.ac.uk