The media area I have studied is the film industry. I will use my case studies which are Skyfall produced by EON films which is owned by Sony a media conglomerate, the other case study I will use is The Woman in Black produced by Hammer films which is a independent film company. In my essay I will explain the impact of media ownership on the film industry and how it affects the production, marketing and consumption phases for a film and how it benifits the production and marketing phase but not so much the consumption phase.
The media ownership massively effects the production phase of
a film. This is for the reason that Sony is part of a media conglomerate so
they had millions of pounds to spend on a film, whereas Hammer films doesn’t as
it’s only a small company. That is why Skyfall had around $150 million spent on
it whereas the Woman in Black had $17 million spent on it. This is a benefit of
media ownership as Skyfall had more money to spend on things like better
locations such as they filmed in Russia and China, but the Woman in Black was
filmed all in England and used a house in Oundle to film with. This was because
Hammer films couldn’t afford to film elsewhere. Skyfall had the money to afford big actors
like Daniel Craig and Judi Dench because of the money Sony had. Whereas the
Woman in Black had done well to afford Daniel Radcliff. This shows that media ownership had had an
massive impact on the film industry as because massive media conglomerates have
the money to spend on actors and better locations than independent film
companies.
The marketing of the films are affected by whether they are
owned by a conglomerate or they are an independent film company. Like with the
production phase media ownership affects how much money a company has to spend
on marketing. Synergy happened in Skyfall as Sony had the money to do so, they
had Adele singing Skyfall which was the films theme song this is an advantage
of Skyfall being part of Sony as money was put in to advertise the film using the
areas they owned such as owning a music label. This is where media ownership is
a problem for small companies such as Hammer films as they don’t have to money
to spend on advertising they rely on social media as it’s free and is easy to
spread the film’s news on. Skyfall used
cross media convergence to promote the film, there was a PlayStation game
brought out based on Skyfall, a single by Adele these helped to promote the
film which is good for Skyfall as they used media convergence and synergy to
get the word out. But because Hammer films are independent and don’t own
anything big they couldn’t do that. This shows that media ownership is important
as it gives the big 6 media conglomerates a change to put there film all over a
range of media products unlike small companies.
In my opinion media ownership doesn’t massively affect the consumption
phase and whether the audience watch the film or not. However media ownership
affects it in one massive way which is cinema’s. The Woman in Black was shown
in around 400 cinema’s compared to Skyfall which was shown in around 500. This
is because massive companies such as Sony have to money and the fact they are
well known, which means any Sony film is more than likely to be shown in cinema’s
compared to small companies who may find it hard getting there film in to the cinema’s.
The audience who buys the DVD itself or downloads it on ITunes are likely to
affected whether the film is made by a massive company or not, if the audience
like the film they will buy it, it’s down to the audiences preference to
whether they want to watch a massive block buster or a small companies film.
So
overall media ownership has an impact massively on the production and marketing
phase as the big companies have the most money which helps the film market and produce a
better film. However when it comes down to the consumption phase media
ownership doesn’t really effect it due to the fact it’s down to the audience’s preferences
to what film they watch whether it’s a big company film or a small company’s
film, it’s not really affected by who the film is owned by.