Practise Essay

Media production is dominated by global institutions which sells their products and services to national audiences.

To what extent do you agree with this statement?

I agree with this statement because Global institutions have a much greater stranglehold over the media and their productions in comparison to British companies especially. This is because the main British institution is Film 4 one of not many branches which belong to Channel 4. Channel 4 seem to be trying to replicate the way the massive global institutions publish their media, they have done this by making Film 4, 4 music and other channels like E4 all of which are little links to Channel 4 in their attempt to branch into a bigger market. Britain is a lot smaller in the global institution market with it's leading institution only publishing on average 10 movies a year where as Time Warner parent owners of Warner Brothers produces on average 23 movies a year, over double Britain, also the budget for the movies would be a lot greater than a film 4 film with the budget being over 5 times higher. Film 4 greatest success to date was in my opinion "Slumdog Millionaire" which won 8 Oscars and took the world by storm and gained the biggest profit for film 4 in their history. With the movie shown on Channel 4 (their parent owners.) The movie also starred a song made famous by an American girl band and was shown on Channel 4 music channel (also reaching #2 in the charts) Overall making this movie a success.

Another reason for the global dominance by these American institutions is because the parent companies who own the movie institutions are more successful such as Time Warner and News Corporation, Disney, Viacom and General Electric. All of these parent companies own much greater chucks of the media and can control their productions better than English institutions because they have a lot more links spread out that gain more profit. American corporations have a lot bigger and broader ways of broadcasting it where as film 4 only have small links to broadcasting their horizon as they are only based within the small capacity of the UK whereas the media produced by bigger companies are exhibited worldwide. The production part of the movies for the movie corporations in American is a lot easier as they have specific target audiences and have a lot more money to advertise there movies and the actors they have to be in the movie publicize the movie, where as film4 cannot afford big starred cast to attract that target audience. The American institution also has a wider range in the merchandise with more money for other products and trailers.     

Another concept that shows the American corporations can produce movies better because they do not have require co-production which can delay the release of the movie because of communication issues between them. Also another problem that the British film institutions face is that they have to sell there publishing rights if they wish to produce the movie in another country making the film loose money. Since the abolition of the British film council the publishing and advertising of the movies has decreased rapidly and made the publishing of movies a lot harder again falling behind to the American film companies.

So overall I think that the global instructions are ruled by the American companies especially because it is a lot easier to broadcast them and publish the movie where as British film producers struggle with investment and overall advertising due to their lack in links and publisists.