Section B: Institutions and Audiences
Answer the question below, making detailed reference to examples from your case study material to support the points made in your answer.
- What impact does media ownership have upon the range of products available to audiences in the media area you have studied? (50 Marks)
Mainstream film production globally is controlled by The Big Six Hollywood film distributors/studios while the rights to independent film production tends to be owned by a number of smaller independent production companies and individual Directors e.g. Shane Meadows and East Midlands Media producing films such as This is England (2006) and Somers Town (2008).
Film ownership is complicated but essentially bigger budget, mainstream films like Star Trek (2009) tend to be often owned, in terms of film rights by one of the ‘Big Six’ because they are the distributor who has made the most significant investment in the production – normally both in terms of production budget and distribution. The Big Six oligopoly are Warner Brothers (Harry Potter franchise), 20th Century Fox (Ice Age), Paramount (Star Trek/Star Trek into Darkness), Disney (Pirates of the Caribbean), Sony who own Columbia Tri Star and MGM (Skyfall) and Universal (The Bourne Legacy). Globally these companies dominate the film industry, particularly in the US and the UK and in terms of access dominate cinema exhibition.
This pattern of global film ownership in recent years has been that these organisations in turn have been bought by multinational conglomerates such as the News Corporation (20th Century Fox), NBC Universal (Universal), Time Warner (Warner) and Viacom (Paramount). This has meant for the film industry more synergy, convergence, merchandising opportunities, higher production values, saturated distribution, star marketing and a wider access to a range of products for mass audiences. These products include cinema exhibited film, DVD/Blu Ray, digital distribution e.g. through Amazon and Love Film all giving easier access to mainstream films and dominating access to digital technology. Sony PlayStation evidences synergy through streaming films via the console while Microsoft X Box can evidence synergy through streaming via Netflix.
Star Trek is a successful and long running film and television franchise owned by Paramount Studios – it is a valuable brand which has extended into a twelfth film in 2013, Star Trek into Darkness. Owned and distributed by Paramount it currently has (as of March 2013) a saturated advertising campaign and as with the previous film was exhibited in over 500 multiplex cinemas in the UK. This is evidence of the control through ownership of a films release ensuring maximum coverage to attract mass audiences – Star Trek (2009) had deliberately in its marketing campaign tried to attract a wider range of audience, moving away from the science fiction stereotype to ensure the film was a blockbuster success at the cinema attracting a broader male and female demographic. Paramount’s funding allowed for supreme high production values and the star marketing of Director JJ Abrams as a unique selling point.
Saturated media coverage included high concept trailers both in the cinema an on television and an approach that used the multi platform opportunities that a film distributed by a major Hollywood studio could exploit. Additional specifics of the campaign included digital marketing on Lost and Fringe web pages (television programmes produced by JJ Abrams), www.imdb.com adverts (expensive), Sky Sports super headers and a Star Trek logo as cursor icon on the Yahoo home page. Facebook applications exploited web 2.0, fan kits and wallpapers could be downloaded and synergy was evident with Sony PlayStation. Magazine covers were devoted to the films release including Big Issue, GQ and Esquire. With synergy the range of products available goes beyond the film whether as a theatrical release, on DVD or Blu Ray, merchandising its own products or as downloadable or streamed content – key promotions were secured with mainstream food outlets such as Burger King where you received a free ‘Star Wars Movie Toy’ with your meal, competitions at Phones4U and Hamleys and a Heat magazine promo which encouraged the stereotypical female reader to become engaged with the film. The result was predictable in that Star Trek was commercially successful and the 7th biggest box office film in 2009 taking 20% of the international box office that year. Paramount spent big to make big.
One of the key impacts of the Hollywood studio dominance is the effect on the British film industry – for many years British film, with key exceptions such as The King’s Speech (funded by private equity firm Prescience and the UK Film Council) British film has on the whole had to rely on Hollywood investment to achieve critical success. British film has achieved almost the status of local culture with most mainstream multiplex cinemas catering for an artificially created and maintained hegemony for Hollywood film. British film stereotypically tends to be narrative and production led while American film is distribution led. Iconic British films like The Full Monty and Slumdog Millionaire were both distributed by 20th Century Fox with much of the profits going back to this organisation. Working Title, the British production company owned by Universal Studios almost exclusively specialises in producing British films for mass audiences that are distributed by its parent company – an example of many UK/US collaborations. Harry Potter and Bond films can be categorised as culturally British but they are underpinned by Hollywood institutional factors including investment, production and distribution.
British Film commercial successes focus on specific genres such as the Period Drama and the RomCom while British Film’s most critically successful genre is Social Realism. Non-realist Hollywood escapist films like Avatar, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter belong to the successful fantasy genre while another key success in terms of genre in Hollywood would be Science Fiction, Action and Comedy. This brings us into the realm of definitions – arguably one of the most important effects of the Hollywood hegemony in terms of ownership has been the continued success of independent film. Independent films, although having limited distribution due to lack of ‘ownership’ by major studios/distributors have the opportunity for their products to be distributed using a range of digital outlets but to a niche audience. Independent British Films like This is England tend to offer more realist representations which explore complex narrative themes while UK Films that collaborate with Hollywood studios often have positive outcomes to appeal to mass audiences. British Film has benefited (only critically) from a range of independent distributors e.g. Optimum (This is England), Icon (Looking for Eric) and Vertigo (Football Factory) although Vertigo in 2009 collaborated with Hollywood for their first UK/US collaboration – The Firm which was a remake of the 1989 Alan Clarke film starring a young Gary Oldman playing a football hooligan, a culturally British storyline used many times before in Green Street, ID and Football Factory.
A key collaboration for independent British Film has been between Film4 and the UK Film Council (now a disbanded Quango) on many films. This ensured another site of exhibition (Film4) that along with the historical UK Film Council’s Funds (Premiere Fund, New Cinema Fund, Development Fund and Prints and Advertising Fund) were looking to sustain success within the British Film Industry. The UK Film Council’s role has now been subsumed by the BFI. Fish Tank (2009) was released the same year as Star Trek but under very different circumstances. The film only was distributed to 40 cinemas but achieved a significant degree of critical success including winner of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and nomination for the Palm D’Or. In 2010 it won the Best British Film BAFTA. In complete binary opposition to a film like Star Trek, owned and distributed by Paramount Studios in securing commercial success, Fish Tank like many British films, use the theatrical release at the cinema as marketing platform. It was produced by the Director, Andrea Arnold’s production company suggesting auteur ownership and was awarded funding from the UK Film Council’s Prints and Advertising Fund (£70,000), £644,000 from the Development Fund and a further £20,000 going into production.
In terms of distribution the small Artificial Eye Company took it on with a reputation for involvement in so called ‘World Cinema’, Art House and critically successful films. The production budget was £1.8m, which is considered high for an independent film (Shifty cost £100,000). Although major studios are investing in the future of digital distribution currently, there is more of an opportunity for independent films to exploit this format despite the oligopoly domination of Hollywood. Obvious commercial boundaries between major studio ownership and more independent productions arguably are being challenged with perhaps the cultural imperialism of Hollywood as less dominant – this potentially could be an oppositional reading with the ability for Hollywood to constantly reinvent itself and exploit every opportunity from the early studio system to star marketing, to high production values to the blockbuster format to symbiotic relationships with multiplex distributors to high concept films to event movies to technology such as 3D and online distribution. Ownership of the means of production and distribution ensures commercial and ideological dominance is maintained.
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