Structure And Ownership

Research into the following topics from a media prospective.

Find some sources that help explain these topics at least three sources for each.

Structure and ownership;

If you're going to set up a business thats not just yourself self employed, there's a few business structures you can use. Such as a limited company or a partnership. The business structure is essentially how the business is run. A major advantage of a limited company is that you can sell shares if you need to make some money, also the owners of the company, and the company are legally separate.

http://www.santanderbreakthrough.co.uk/advice/strategy/ownership-structures

Private ownership;

Privately owned companies, in relation to the media, are companies that are owned by individuals or shareholders, such as Channel 4 and the related channels.. Rupert Murdoch is a good example of a controlling interest in a company. Public ownership would be something like the BBC, where the company is funded by the state or taxpayer. 

http://www.sociology.org.uk/Media_ownership1.pdf

http://revisionworld.co.uk/a2-level-level-revision/sociology/mass-media-0/ownership-and-control-media

http://aceproject.org/ace-en/topics/me/meb/meb03/meb03a/onePage

Public service media;

Public service media is essentially media such as advert, but uses digital platforms and media such as the internet, its target audience is generally Youth. 

Radiolab, shown in the picture below, define themselves as this ' Radiolab is a show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience. ' Its an example of public service media, as they're reaching out to young people to assist.

http://www.unesco.org.uk/public_service_media

http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=1525&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

multinationals;

Multinationals are corporations that have bases in more than one country, such as McDonalds, or Sony.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_corporation

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/multinationalcorporation.asp

http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ355/choi/mnc.htm

Independents;

An independent company is a company that owns all its assets, and is not owned by another company. 

http://www.qfinance.com/dictionary/independent-company

http://www.investorwords.com/10013/independent_company.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_business

Conglomerates;

A conglomerate is a company that owns other companies, that do completely different things to the parent company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conglomerate_(company)

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/conglomerate.asp

Voluntary;
Voluntary companies are companies run by unpaid individuals, either because they have an interest in that area, or they feel they wish to put something back into the world. Most voluntary organisations are charities, who gain their income through fundraising events and private donations.

cross-media;
 Cross media has 4 main elements,  Pushed, Extras, Bridges, and Experiences (transmedia). Pushed is essentially where the same content, or minor variations thereupon are pushed in different forms, into different platforms.
Extras: Extras is essentially extra content thats made alongside the main element, but delivered in different ways to the main production, for instance the main production being a feature film, and an extra would be an app, or flash game to go with it.
Bridges: This is where the production drives users to go across various media platforms to continue with the activity. For instance, leaving a tv advert, and leaving it on a cliffhanger, then inviting the viewers to go to a web address, or showing a QR code to link them on to what happens after.
 Experiences: This is essentially a mix of the other 3 parts, the content is distributed in a producer 'hands off' non linear way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossmedia

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Crossmedia

http://www.publicitas.ch/en/media/allmedia/definition-crossmedia/

diversification;
The idea of diversification is buying stocks in many different companies, each as a failsafe sort of idea. The idea behind it being that if you have many forms of income, if one goes down you always have a safety net to fall back into.Also different investments could in the future, yield higher profits.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/diversification.asp

vertical and horizontal integration;

Vertical Integration: vertical integration is a system of management control. Its easiest to explain it in form of a supply chain, for instance all the companies involved in supply chains could all have seperate owners, but an example of vertical integration would be having all the companies united under one owner.

Horizontal integration: Horizontal integration is where a company is being taken over by another company, in the same business, and at the same stage.

www.slideshare.net/spingwoodmedia/vertical-and-horizontal-integration-explained

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share of ownership;

A share of ownership is where the the company isn’t owned by one specific person, Its split into a selection of shares that are put onto the stock market, so the public can own shares, normally the founder of the company will own the most shares, giving them the controlling interest. Having a share of ownership in a company will bring you in some money each month, it could vary from month to month depending on how well the companies doing on the stock market.

mergers and takeovers;

Mergers and takeovers happen when two companies join into one. A merger is when two companies join into one voluntarily. They would do this for multiple reasons, such as gaining better profits and more business. There are two types of merger, vertical and horizontal. A vertical merger would be two companies from different lines of business, horizontal is where two companies from the same line of work join together. A takeover is when a company is forced to join with another company.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CEAQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bized.co.uk%2Fsites%2Fbized%2Ffiles%2Fdocs%2Fmergers.ppt&ei=Sx-aUcuNL8SX1AW344CgAg&usg=AFQjCNGOPblti_8Oz7BDY76ZcqvfeS3w0g&sig2=Y7BrW4RAFyxxHYVJnpYTFQ&bvm=bv.46751780,d.d2k

cross-media regulation;

Cross media regulation is put in place by Ofcom, to stop one individual owning all of the news/broadcast outlets in a specific area to prevent biased news and programming. 

sources of income;

Sources of income are needed to put money into the media industry. They come from a range of different things, a main contributor the income is advertising. These can pay per click, or per showing, or listen! Another one would be merchandising, like Apple providing a certain amount of computers for a television studio, as long as they use all Apple computers in their shows. You have to be very careful with merchandising and product placement.

product diversity;

Product diversity, is media companies diversifying and specializing their output so they fit their required audience. If they find a niche market where there are no companies specifically producing that type of media to a particularly high standard, they can work their way in and possibly tap into a very good revenue stream.

profitability of product range;

This is all about how much money you’re making off the products you put out there, whether it be web broadcasting, TV shows, or radio shows. This is partly where ratings come in, if the ratings for a particular product in your range are very low, then you would cut that product, as its not profitable, and could well make you a loss. But on the other end of that scale, if you have a product with very good ratings, you’ll spend the money to produce more of that, to create a greater profit.

organisational objectives;

These are the overall objectives for a business, that have been set out by the management then been sent down to the workers. Most of the time they focus on the long range goals of the company and its philosophy. This can provide guidance for employees that want to go higher in the business.

licenses;

Licenses are to give permission to do certain things within a company. A good example of this would be having a PRS Licence to play music in a public place legally without infringing on copyright laws. They’re needed to prevent your company from lawsuits, and legal issues.

franchises;

A franchise is a license given to a business [the franchisee] to give them the franchisors business plan, and trademarks to provide products or services under the name of the franchisor. The franchisee often pays the start up, and an annual license fee. One example of a franchise is McDonalds.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/franchise.asp

competitors;

A competitor is someone who runs a business in the same area as you, who provides you with competition for your product/service. They could be national, or international. 

customers;

The customers are the people who buy the product/service you purvey. Everyone is a customer to some form of service.

national and global competition and trends;

The national and global competition are the competitors to you, that provide a similar product or service to the one/s you offer. The trends are what dictate the services/products used.