Practise essay

"Media production is dominated by global institutions, which sell their products and services to national audiences."
To what extent do you agree with this statement.

According to this statement media production is dominated by global institutions, in some ways is true as British production companies such as Film 4 brand there services to national audiences, for example film 4 is one of the largest British production companies that focuses on specific audiences. Film 4 has widened their audiences by buying rights to TV channels such as Channel 4 which is on every British television set even without resources like Sky or Free view which enables televisions to gain extra channels, they also on music channels such as 4music. Since film4 produces its own movies it has the ability to exploit its resources by promoting there new films, when they made ‘slumdog millionaire’ they had a low budget but still was made very successful as film4 played that movie on channel 4 regularly so audiences would get interested and watch it, the movie also had a hit US group band that made a successful soundtrack called ‘jai hoe’ this track was continuously played on film4’s music channel 4music.

Also such productions like in the US where companies such as Time Warner who are one of the biggest production companies around benefit from synergy as they own smaller media companies which broaden their circulation and assists their domination, they also have a range of media arms in production, from advertising trailers to merchandise deals. Time Warner own Warner bros entertainment which own industries with TV shows, music stations, internet and even comic books. They also appeal to a range of audiences as the US production companies have a basic story line with a beginning, middle and end, which attracts also the British audiences, in addition to this they also have bankable stars to star in their movies which attract many audiences, something the UK industry can rarely do on a small budget.

The US advancements in the industry and large budget means that they do not have to sell their products unlike the UK, this makes their dominance in media production solid. The UK also has had many disadvantages as the British Film Council was shut down due to expensive costs; this makes the US dominancy transparent. The other disadvantages the UK faces are that in one movie there are co-producers which mean that two or more companies are financing the movie; this can be a strain as the movie could be changed by co-producers, making the release of the movie delayed. One of the major disadvantages the UK face is that they have to sell distribution rights to other companies in order to get the movie out in the cinemas, sometimes this means over to America.

In conclusion I agree with the above statement in terms of the British industry as they face many other aspects to producing a film than the US does, like selling distribution rights, and only being able to produce 10 movies a year with little budget.