What impact does media ownership have upon the range of products in the media area you have studied?

What impact does media ownership have upon the range of products in the media area you have studied?

All media products such as films are owned by a company or conglomerate, a media conglomerate being a multinational firm that distributes media products in the industry using their relative subsidiaries. The top 3 media behemoths in the industry consist of Comcast, Disney and Time Warner in the relative order.  Comcast sits at the most successive spot in the media industry making a profit of around $75 billion per year, owning such subsidiaries as Universal Studios and the relative parks and resorts, however gaining most success as a cable provider for television.

This is closely followed by Disney, bringing in around $50 billion per year, known majorly by national audiences it produces products we all know and love, owning such subsidiaries as Pixar, Marvel and most recently Lucas film we are all very familiar with, giving the conglomerate a very high chance of success due to its established popularity. Although they own such well known companies, it is in fact the relative parks, resorts and cruises that bring in the biggest percentage of income, known and scattered worldwide it is seen as a dreamland to most families.

However for my case study I closely studied the Conglomerate Time Warner. CEO Jeff Bewkes runs the conglomerate bringing in around $35 billion a year. This however has been recently had interest in being brought by AT&T for $85 billion as of October 2016, however has not been confirmed. The Behemoth owns such companies as HBO, CNN, Warner Bros and DC Comics.

Very recently Time Warner had success with the most recent rendition of the Batman trilogy; Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. This poses as the most successive series/trilogy of Time Warner history with The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises holding the 1^st and second spot in the most successive films of Time Warner.  In total the trilogy making $1.9 Billion.

To show the impact I want to focus on related more recent products of Warner Bros and DC Comics, Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and The Lego Batman Movie. All products possess a relation to the cash cow that is batman. Batman being a product of the DC Comics franchise, it has received major success and now has a mass popularity. Although each three of these films received major critique and were not as near popular to that of the recent batman trilogy they were a major success in terms of profit. Dawn of Justice making $700 million profit (to current date) after their $250 million production budget, Suicide Squad making $650 million (to current date) after its $150 million production budget and finally The Lego Batman Movie making $200 million (to current date) after its $80 million production budget. Meaning the three films have made around $1.55 billion in profit (to current date). This clearly shows that media ownership has a major impact on the industry as companies with established products and franchises can use a tent pole formula of Big Stars, CGI, pyrotechnics etc. using a large production budget in which they have access to due to their yearly income and ability to invest knowing they are guaranteed success.

This success can also be based on the conglomerates ability to market properly. Although most companies will have the ability to use teaser trailers and official trailers to market their product having a larger budget to do so will definitely increase chances of success. Whereas smaller companies will not have this ability and may even have to resort to marketing via word of mouth. Using the platforms of social media, already established products such as batman will already have uber fans creating their own content and discussion to support it such as Swedes, Fan trailers, Fan Art, Fan websites, memes, reaction videos and acts as free marketing keeping the franchise alive. The platform that is YouTube gives companies such as Time Warner a major advantage giving them an insight into analytics and how to best market their upcoming product through teaser trailers and relative fan productions.

The company can then further go ahead taking viral and traditional marketing techniques making them more extravagant than some such in the case of The Dark Knights marketing strategy leaking a virtual game into real life with clues and concepts all over the place sparking mass online discussion and hype for the upcoming film due to their ability to fund this.

The film is then finally distributed to the relative cinemas/theatres in different formats depending on your ability to achieve it in different formats. Conglomerates producing tent pole movies will put out their film in 2D, 3D, IMAX and more recently 4D.  Whereas smaller budget films will have the simple option of 2D giving the viewer a less immersive experience of that what would be a major film. This section then brings in the major amount of profit.

Shortly follow the release into the home media market, again giving the viewer options of SD, Blu-ray and more recently 4K HD, not only this but the films can then be distributed digitally via streaming companies such as Netflix, Now TV, Sky and many more, the fight for exclusively being able to show tent-pole movie first will bump the cost for the streaming company and bump the profit for Time Warner. Whereas smaller company products will not be of high demand, being sold for smaller prices.

This is all then supported by the ability of non-digital and digital convergence of relative products to the media product. From digital products such as apps, games, interactive toys to non-digital products toys, posters and decoration all bring in a larger profit to the producers, again not achievable by smaller companies.

All of this very much shows media ownership has a very large impact on the film industry, although there are some exceptions for success, it is all very dependent on their established success and ability to spend on production and marketing.