Sony Corporation is a large Japanese conglomerate that owns companies across several industries including electronics, gaming, film, and music. It produces a wide range of consumer products and owns media properties like Columbia Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment. Sony has pursued an acquisition strategy, becoming a vertically integrated media company through mergers and takeovers in order to generate profits across multiple stages of production and distribution. However, this strategy has also attracted criticism for giving Sony too much control over the media landscape.

1. Media Company Case
Study
Task 1 Understand the structure
and ownership of the media sector
Callum Wallace

2. ∗ A privately owned company that generates its revenue mainly
through advertising. Such as the TV company ITV
http://www.itv.com/ The primary focus of the private (or
commercial) media outlet is surviving in the marketplace and
producing profit.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/privatecompany.asp
∗ The advantages of this way of ownership is that it can be more
profitable overall. But a disadvantage is that advertising companies
could dictate what is broadcast on your station and you could
become the advertisers puppets.
∗ http://www.globalization101.org/ownership/
Types of ownership: private ownership

3. ∗ Public service does not have advertising and generates revenue through the public (license fee)
paying for it and in return they provide services for the public there main principles are;
∗ universal accessibility (geographic)
∗ universal appeal (general tastes and interests)
∗ particular attention to minorities
∗ contribution to sense of national identity and community
∗ distance from vested interests
∗ direct funding and universality of payment
∗ competition in good programming rather than numbers
∗ guidelines that liberate rather than restrict programme-makers
∗ The advantages of this are that it usually makes for better broadcasting e.g. shows. Because the
programme makers are given more freedom because they aren't dictated by advertising companies.
A disadvantage is that it may not generate as much money as a privately owned company.
∗ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_broadcasting
Types of ownership: public service

4. Types of ownership: independent
∗ An example of an independently owned media outlet is Domino
Records which have bands signed such as the last shadow
puppets and arctic monkeys. They are funded through their own
company.
∗ Advantages of this is that all of the company's generate profits
got to the company and not the parent company because most
record labels are have a parent company such as sony. A
disadvantage they font get the help from parent company's if
they start to go down hill.
∗ http://
www.theguardian.com/media/independent-production-companies

5. ∗ A conglomerate is a huge corporate company that owns
smaller companies, such as SONY, Who own a record label,
film company, TV and also sell things such as phones and
TVS.
∗ The advantages of this is that is very profitable because
you’re generating profit from each company combined a
disadvantage is that you can be seen as dominating the
media and may be accused of not producing/broadcasting
anything that isn’t in your best interest.
∗ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_conglomerate
Types of ownership: conglomerate

6. ∗ Horizontal Integration is when two big companies
merge together for example when Universal Records
and EMI merged together.
∗ The advantages of this is you can generate more
profits and publicity a disadvantage is you may lose
your independence and the other company might
start making your decisions for you.
Types of Companies:
Horizontal Integration

7. ∗ Vertical Integration is when a company profits from the
production, distribution and consumption of a product for
example in the music industry. With all the new software
available smaller and smaller companies are able to
achieve this.
∗ The advantages of this are you can generate profit from
each aspect of making a media product the disadvantages
are because smaller and smaller independent companies
are able to achieve this now customers to your company
may find the cheapest option.
Types of Companies:
Vertical Integration

8. ∗ Cross media convergence is when a form of media
appears in another form of media for example songs
appearing in games. Such as Rockstar Games GTA V
has about 50 different songs on the game. The
advantages are they can be used to benefit each
other in quality and profits.
Cross Media convergence

9. ∗ Synergy is when a media product sells other products
such as merchandise, if a band is doing a concert they
would sell t-shirts and their album at the concert that
is synergy. The advantages are you can make more
money because you can sell multiple products at
once.
Synergy

10. ∗ The music industry is structured in a pyramid system it starts at the top
with the people who are making the product and then goes down to the
consumers of the product. There’s multiple aspects of the production
such as promotion, production and exporting. Then consumption of the
product. Recently promotion has become more and more easy with the
likes of YouTube/ Facebook helping smaller and smaller artists get
attention. Its usually the actual record company that does most of the
more media side and the artist just doing the creative production. Such as
Sony records they’ll take care of almost everything apart from the music
and they may even have a small input on that. But smaller and smaller
record companies have been able to do what the bigger companies do
know with recent software that is available.
The main aspects are:
Artists and composers
Managers
Production companies
Publishing companies
Record companies
Distribution
Retail
Describe the Structure and of
Ownership of Either The Film, TV,
Gaming or Music Industry

11. ∗Sony, is a Japanese multinational publicly owned
conglomerate. They have big electronics, gaming, film and
music companies. They produce products such as the PS4,
Spiderman movies, Sony TV’s and they have artists signed
such as Lady Gaga.
Sony

12. Sony Corporation ,commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate
corporation headquartered in Kōnan Minato, Tokyo, Japan.Its diversified business is primarily
focused on the electronics, game, entertainment and financial services sectors. The company is one
of the leading manufacturers of electronic products for the consumer and professional
markets. Sony is ranked 87th on the 2012 list of Fortune Global 500.
Sony found its beginning in the wake of World War II. In 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics
shop in a department store building in Tokyo. The company had $530 in capital and a total of eight
employees. The next year, he was joined by his colleague, Akio Morita, and they founded a
company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation). The
company built Japan's first tape recorder, called the Type-G. In 1958 the company name was
changed to Sony.
In the early 1950s, Ibuka in the United States heard about Bell Labs' invention of the transistor. He
convinced Bell to license the transistor technology to his Japanese company, for use in
communications. Ibuka's company made the first commercially successful transistor radios.
Ownership

13. Sonys mergers and takeovers have allowed it to become a vertically integrated company. Key to this
was that they acquire Columbia Pictures Entertainment in 1989. Sony has since created numerous
other film production and distribution units, such as Sony Pictures Classics for art- house fare, by
forming Columbia TriStar Pictures after merging Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures in 1998• The
Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group has a library of more than 4,000 films and as of 2004 this unit of
Sony distributes about 22 films a year under its various brands in 67 countries. The group owns studio
facilities in the United States, Hong Kong, Madrid, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Japan.
Columbia TriStar also has a contract to distribute films for independent Revolution Studios and select
films by MGM and United Artists.• 2005 – a Sony-led consortium acquired the legendary Hollywood
studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in a deal worth nearly $5 billion. Again, in an ideal world, the back
catalogue releases would be played on Sony equipment. Profits from its major studio successes allow it
to back smaller, independent films through “niche” companies like Destination Films, which it
purchased in 2001 and Stage 6 Films, a direct to video/DVD label created in 2007. It used to have its own
cinema chain in which to exhibit its products; it has Sony Pictures Home Entertainment: manufactures
and distributes the Sony film library on Blu-ray Disc (a Sony product) and DVD. It has its own (or co-
owned) film distribution companies around the world, so it doesn’t have to look for a distributor
abroad It also owns Sony Music Entertainment, formed by successive mergers of various other
companies, including Columbia Records, Epic and RCA. Sony completed its acquisition of the German
Bertelsmann Music Group on October 1, 2008. The company Sony Music Entertainment Inc. became a
wholly owned subsidiary of the Sony Corporation of America.• Artists signed to Sony can be found on
Sony produced soundtracks of Sony films, like Spider-Man (2002), for example. If you like Chad
Kroeger, you may go out and buy music from his band Nickleback on Road Runner Records, which is
owned by Sony, or perhaps you enjoyed Aerosmith on the Spider-Man soundtrack, in which case, you
might prefer to buy CDs from their back catalogue, which is owned by Sony.

14. ∗ Sonys main rivals are Universal because they produce
some of the same products such as films and music and
they are just as big if not bigger than Sony. They make
millions of dollars just the same as sony.
∗ They both have problems with illegal downloading
however as films, music and games have become widely
available and easy to download for free so it is forcing
their hand to try and make defences about it or stronger
laws.
Competitors

15. ∗ There audience is pretty broad as at least one of their
products appeals to any given person but if you had
to put a majority on it it would be mainly males of all
ages.
∗ It shard to find stats on their audience because they
make so many products and its so broad but they
make millions of dollars from being so versatile.
Audience

16. ∗ There was a big structure change in January of 1996 and this is what sony said
they were changing:
∗ The Consumer A&V Products Company will be reorganized to create three new
companies: The Display Company, the Home AV Company and the Personal AV
Company.
∗ The Information Technology Company will be newly established to oversee
Sony's businesses in the personal computer and IT areas.
∗ In addition, the InfoCom Products Company and the Mobile Electronics Company
will be merged to create the Personal & Mobile Communications Company.
∗ The new structure will result in a total of ten companies within Sony Corporation.
The other companies not mentioned above are the Components & Peripherals
Company (formerly called the Components Company), the Recording Media &
Energy Company, the Broadcast Products Company, the Image & Sound
Communications Company (formerly called the Business & Industrial Systems
Company) and the Semiconductor Company.
∗ In addition to the new company structure, young talent will be appointed as
presidents of each company. As in the past, company presidents will be given full
autonomy and authority to manage their respective companies.

17. ∗ The Sony BMG CD copy protection rootkit scandal of 2005–2007 concerns
deceptive, illegal, and potentially harmful copy protection measures
implemented by Sony BMG on about 22 million CDs. When inserted into a
computer, the CDs installed one of two pieces of software which provided a form
of digital rights management (DRM) by modifying the operating system to
interfere with CD copying. Both programs could not be easily uninstalled, and
they created vulnerabilities that were exploited by unrelated malware. Sony
claims this was unintentional. One of the programs installed even if the user
refused its EULA, and it "phoned home" with reports on the user's private
listening habits; the other was not mentioned in the EULA at all, contained code
from several pieces of open-source software in an apparent infringement of
copyright, and configured the operating system to hide the software's existence,
leading to both programs being classified as rootkits.
∗ Sony BMG initially denied that the rootkits were harmful. It then released, for one
of the programs, an "uninstaller" that only un-hid the program, installed
additional software which could not be easily removed, collected an email
address from the user, and introduced further security vulnerabilities.
∗ Following public outcry, government investigations, and class-action lawsuits in
2005 and 2006, Sony BMG partially addressed the scandal with consumer
settlements, a recall of about 10% of the affected CDs, and the suspension of CD
copy protection efforts in early 2007.

18. ∗ www.nasdaq.com/symbol/sne/institutional-holdings
∗ www.studymode.com/essays/Vertical-Integration-At-
Sony-162799.html
∗ www.universalpictures.co.uk/
∗ www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press_Archive/199601/
96O-004E/
∗ www.networkworld.com/article/2194292/network-
security/sony-bmg-rootkit-scandal--5-years-later.html
Bibliography