Unit 7: Understanding the TV and Film Industries

Unit 7.1

Media: TV and Film industries

There are five channels that are available to all people; regardless of if they own a digital box or not. These channels are: BBC One and Two, ITV 1, Channel 4 and Five. If there is no digital box attached to a TV, then these channels are received by analogue signals, instead of digital. Free-view is a new, digital provider, that only charges once for the purchase of the set-top box and nothing else, the name free-view, as well as the technology and service, is owned by a company called DTV services. The company uses the free-view boxes to promote free digital television services as a whole and those services operated by companies that are part of the free-view consortium share holders. 1

Satellite television is also a form of digital TV, however, the company that provides this (BskyB) charges for both the set-top box, but also monthly, for the channel sets that are available to the consumer, as well as this, BskyB also charge people for what is known as “pay-per-view” services, this can cover anything from: Films, to sporting events as well as some other different types of programming. Below is a screenshot from the BskyB corporate website 2, showing some key fact and figures about their service.

Because digital television is becoming so popular, the analogue television service is being permanently replaced by digital; however, this change is gradual, and is happening at different times depending on what region of the UK you live in. There is a map on the website: http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/when_do_i_switch where the times of the digital switchover are being shown by region.

This is the data I received when I researched when the switchover is happening in Yorkshire. The website has given me the: Year of switch, Transmitter I am receiving signals from, other transmitters in the region

There are some new products from the service providers that enable people to pause, rewind, and record live television. In total there are three, although only two are available here in the UK, they are: Sky+, V+ and TiVo. Sky+ and V+ are the two different services available here, whereas TiVo is only available in the USA, Canada, Australia, Mexico and Taiwan; These services allow people to pause and record live TV, as well as record whole Series, and rewind shows up to an hour, depending on whether the person had changed the channel or not. Interactivity in television has grown significantly; there are phone-in voting and competitions, where people can influence their favorite shows e.g. voting people off of the show (Big Brother, X Factor and other talent/reality shows.) Also, accessing the “red button” feature of TV; which is only available on a minority of channels, people can to a separate “channel” where previously inaccessible features become available to the viewer, such as choosing the specific programming to watch for that service – this is used a lot during major sporting events shown on the BBC, so that you could choose what event you wanted on the Olympics, or which teams to watch for the Euro or the World cups.

Now, people, or “consumers” can watch TV on the internet, a wide variety of websites offer the ability of watching shows from either their channel: BBC, ITV, C4 or watch episodes of a particular show: Family guy X, South park zone, Family guy now. Sadly, not all of these sites are legal, and many have been shut down due to the sharing of video files illegally, one example of an illegal website is the former video website TV links, which was shut down by UK authorities (see news clipping below) however, a lot of legal video sharing sites have survived, for instance, Family guy X, no longer host their own videos, but instead provide links to websites which are legally allowed to show the videos.

(Probably the most popular video streaming site around has been busted by UK authorities. It's a sad day for streaming video fans everywhere as news has been reported that TV Links has been shut down and the owner, a 26 year old man from Cheltenham in the UK, was arrested. Though not hosting an actual content himself, and rather merely providing links to where particular titles can be found, he was nonetheless apparently charged for the "facilitation" of copyright infringement. "Sites such as TV Links contribute to and profit from copyright infringement by identifying, posting, organizing, and indexing links to infringing content found on the internet that users can then view on demand by visiting these illegal sites," said a spokesman for Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) today. What makes the charges so odd is that he was again, only providing LINKS to pirated content, and never actually hosted anything. Can linking really be considered "facilitation?" If I link to TV Links am I then a co-conspirator?)

It is mostly free to watch TV on the internet, but some websites can charge for the download of TV episodes, so that you pay, but keep the file for as long as you want it, a service from the music download giant iTunes, where people can download their favourite TV episodes, or a whole series, for their video iPod. Although, there have been a lot of issues with the cost of these videos, as I researched, the price of one television episode is £1.89 and a whole series of a program is closer to £30, this is a very high price as some TV DVD box sets are between £15 and £20, so the money issue does come into play there.

Because of the vast range of channels now available to people, there are no longer massive audience figures. If I compare two viewing charts, one from this week and one from 1998, I will be able to compare how audiences have become fragmented over the course of 10 years.

Audience reach for week 8/11/98

As you can see, the weekly reach for terrestrial TV is 92.5%, also the “other viewing” or digital channels in the chart is only 29% of the total weekly reach of UK audiences. Now, I will compare these results to today, week ending, 26/10/08 6
Audience reach for week 26/10/08


The data I have found here, shows that the total share of “other viewing” has risen by around 27% and the weekly reach of digital channels has risen to 77.3%

Media Case study – BBC

The BBC is Britain’s only pure public service broadcaster; this means that none of the money that the BBC receives is made from advertising, all of the money that the BBC makes and earns is from either the government, or the television licence fees, this money is paid by the viewers and goes towards all of the programs and wages of all of the people who work at the BBC.
The channels of the BBC

The BBC has branched out significantly since the days of BBC 1 and 2. Now there are over 15 TV and Radio channels available to people with digital TV, whether that be on Sky, Free view or Virgin media. However, I will focus on the four main BBC channels, as these are the most important to a television case study. The channels are listed below with descriptions of the general content of each channel.

• BBC1: One of the flagship channels from the BBC, this channel now shows more entertainment than BBC 2, and also covers the news, and formal and serious events in government and society.
• BBC2: The second of the main channels, BBC 2 has a lot more programming like documentaries and factual programming.
• BBC three: BBC three is an entertainment channel, which shows a lot more “young” and other youth culture programming, this is known as the “niche” channel for the BBC.
• BBC four: BBC four is another Niche channel, but the programming shown on this channel is more focused on the drama and older generation programming, this would attract the opposite audience to BBC 3, which I think is the desired effect.

Recent controversy in the BBC

Recent controversy in the BBC stems from the incident involving rigged phone-in votes, where people’s votes for shows such as strictly come dancing as well as other shows, including blue peter, were rigged and people were charged for no reason. Also; the amount of complaints from the incident involving both Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand on Brand’s BBC radio 2 show, where inappropriate comments were left on the actor Andrew Sachs’ answering machine; even more complaints were received when on the popular show Top Gear, the presenter, Jeremy Clarkson, made a joke about lorry drivers and how they have a hard job to do. “This is a hard job to do and I’m not just saying that, its always, change gear, change gear, check your mirrors, change gear, change gear, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, change gear, check, murder. It’s really difficult” 7

Footnotes:

1: From www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeview_(UK)
2: From www.corporate.sky.com/about_sky/key_facts_and_figures.htm
3: From http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/when_do_i_switch
4: From http://www.bbc.co.uk/digital/tv/tv_interactive.shtml
5: From http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9066/TVLinks+Shut+Down,+Owner+Arrested!
6: From http://www.barb.co.uk/viewingsummary/weekreports.cfm?RequestTimeout=500&report=total
7:From top gear, series 12 episode 1, Jeremy Clarkson

Media Television and film industries

Funding in the TV industry

A public service broadcaster, or a PSB, is a TV channel, which is not funded in any way by advertising. The only true PSB in Britain is the BBC; and the BBC makes money only, through the television license fees, which are paid by everyone in the UK who own a TV. Because the BBC are not funded by companies advertising, they do not need to worry about ratings, and losing funding from low ratings, this is mostly why the BBC is free to broadcast shows that might not be popular with the lowest common denominator of our society. Programs such as documentaries, topical quiz shows and other informative programming are mostly only available on the BBC because they are obliged to inform, educate and entertain. If these criteria are not met by any shows, they cannot be shown on the BBC. One such example of a show not fulfilling these criteria of the BBC is fame academy, which was cancelled after one series because it was deemed not to fulfill more than one of the criteria required to be shown on the BBC the three criteria are essential in making sure that shows are of the right standard to be shown on the BBC.
Considering the future of the PSB system, there were a lot of talks on the integrity of the BBC and how it should remain to be run the same, as it was when it was founded. Several people, considered legendary to the BBC; including Sir David Attenborough and Will Hutton all gave speeches on how the BBC was a piece of British heritage that we could not afford to lose, the other speech, given by Stephen Fry, a man who has appeared in many of the BBC’s most popular shows, as well as creating some of the most powerful and intriguing documentary series, most recently of which: Stephen Fry in America.
The other form of funding usually found in the UK is advertising; channels sell small spaces of airtime to companies who want to show people their products. The problem with this system is that if a show does not attract enough viewers, the companies will pull their adverts, costing the channel a lot of money, eventually leading to the show being pulled from the channel. This problem means that shows, which do not appeal to the lowest common denominator of the people, would not last on these channels, and the only shows that can survive are often shallow talent contests.

There is a different form of advertising, that has been banned in most countries for its use of subliminal messaging; a method of advertising that transmits messages to people without them noticing, but still absorbing the information. The use of subliminal messaging in the form of product placement is still widespread in the USA, as the practice has not yet been outlawed. An example of how product placement can be shown on TV is the film: The Truman Show, which is based on a reality show that advertises companies’ products through product placement.

However, one channel that uses the advertising system, channel 4, is now receiving some of the TV license fees from the BBC; this is mostly because channel 4 is struggling to survive in recent years. This means that channel 4 is funded by a hybrid system. The money that channel 4 needs is because of the advertisers pulling out of the commercial time, due to unpopular shows, this would usually cripple any channel, but the BBC decided to help out and make sure that the channel can continue
The third way that channels are funded is subscription, many of the sky channels: sky movies, sky sports etc are funded by the monthly fees that are paid by the viewer. In America, one of the most well known channels HBO (Home box office) began as a way for people to order films from the channel, but eventually began to get some of the most famous and skilled producers and directors to work for them, creating shows such as the sopranos and more recently little Britain USA. The subscription fees are varied depending on the package the viewer receives.

The film I have created above, is about different aspects of the TV and film industry. it was made using iMovie and the audio was used from different soundtrack CD’s supplied by the media department. i made the video in accordance with the task, however, most of the others in my class did not create a movie, but did a presentation and filmed themselves doing the presentation.