Media Ownership

“The Big Six”

Hollywood has long been ruled by the studio system. The studio system includes a selected number of ‘major’ studios who engage in film production & distribution. They release a substantial number of films every year & earn a major share of box office revenues.

With significant changes marking the turning points in Hollywood, the frontrunners become the ‘big’ studios. The current ‘Big Six’ came into being from 1990 to 1995, when Hollywood became more of a conglomerate than a mere film production & distribution unit.

The ‘Big Six’ collectively command approximately 80 – 85 percent of US & Canadian box office revenue. These ‘Big Six’ are: 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures & Walt Disney Pictures. Of these, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., and Paramount Pictures were part of the original ‘Big Five’ who operated during the Golden Age of Hollywood (late 1920s to mid-1940s). The other three –Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures & Walt Disney Pictures earned the market share much later.

Warner Bros. Pictures
Warner Bros. Pictures stands at the forefront of the entertainment industry. In 2013, Warner Bros. ruled the movie world with a market share of $5.03 billion globally*. Some of the biggest releases of the studio this year include The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, Gravity, and Man of Steel. They also set a new record as the only studio to exceed $1B for 13 years running*. A few other titles that made Warner Bros. the # 1 name in the film industry include the Harry Potter series, the Superman series, The Matrix series & Star Wars.

20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox is the world’s second largest film studio after Warner Bros. The studio has distributed various commercially successful films, including Avatar, Ice Age, X-Men, Die Hard, Planet of the Apes, Night at the Museum, and Fantastic Four, securing them their position as one of the Big Six studios of Hollywood. As the first studio to reach the $1 billion mark in gross domestic revenue in 2014#, and with enormous earnings by the end of the year, the studio’s stunning turnaround easily surpass its previous records.

Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures is the longest operating major studio in Hollywood. It has a century of experience in finest production services from development of story idea to post production. In 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all its films in digital-form only.

Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures or Universal Studios is best known for three of Steven Spielberg’s biggest hits – Jaws, E.T., and Jurassic Park, each of which became the highest-grossing film ever at the time of its release. The massive backlot of the Universal Studios is used by other film studios including Walt Disney. Parts of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, and the recreation of Whitecap Bay for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides were both shot at Universal Studios backlot.

Sony Pictures Entertainment (earlier known as Columbia-Tristar Pictures)
Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) operates Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics, and TriStar Pictures. The studio enjoyed its best year in terms of box-office grosses in 2012, with its films collecting US$ 4.4 billion in ticket sales. SPE has produced, distributed, or co-distributed successful film series including Spider-Man, Men in Black, Underworld, and Resident Evil.

Walt Disney Studios
The Walt Disney Studio’s multi-faceted film division produced some groundbreaking films, such as Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated movie, and Pinocchio, a film with intricate levels of technical brilliance in animation, that made the studio stand apart. Over the decades, Disney Studio introduced numerous technologies in animation & live action films. Disney’s Steamboat Willie was the first animated film to have synchronized sound & image, Flowers and Trees was the first in the genre with three-strip Technicolor, and Fantasia was the first film to use a multi-channel sound system called Fantasound.

These film studios dominate both American cinema & the global film industry. Most films that reach the international audience, in multiple continents & in multiple languages, are usually produced and/ or distributed by one of these, thus making them the Big Six.

Global conglomerates

Global conglomerates are big international media companies that own mass media products such as film, TV, radio, magazines, book, etc. 2 examples of top global conglomerates would be:

Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA

German media giant Bertelsmann have nearly $21 billion in revenue and over $800 million generated in profit. The flagship media company in Europe makes its name with assets that include the RTL Group, one of the biggest television broadcasters in Europe; Gruner + Jahr, the biggest magazine publisher in Europe; and Random House, the biggest book publisher in the world. It has a multifaceted approach to media ownership and great standing in Europe.

Comcast Corporation

Comcast is your top dog amongst media conglomerates in 2013, as the only company to reach over $6 billion in profit and with nearly 50% more revenue than nearest competitor Walt Disney in 2012, having earned over $62.5 billion. Comcast received its biggest boost in trying to rise to no. 1 in taking over NBC Universal in 2010, which also gave them a significant advantage over Disney who still have yet ascend its own cable news network (ABC News) to a level where it can compete with the likes of Comcast owned MSNBC.

Comcast also does battle with Disney on the movie and theme park with Universal Studios. Comcast will add a significant asset to its NBC Sports division when it begins broadcasting Barclays Premier League matches live in August, a deal they secured with a three-year $240 million dollar offer.

Cross-media ownership and cross-media convergence

Media cross-ownership is the ownership of multiple media businesses by a person or corporation. These businesses can include broadcast and cable television, film, radio, newspaper, magazine, book publishing, music, video games, and various online entities.

Cross media convergence is where different types of technology come together to produce new technology. For example Sony and Ericsson.

Concentration of ownership

concentration of ownership means that a very small number of corporations are controlling an increasing amount of the media industry. This is a problem that more significant now than ever before.

Synergy and symbiosis

Synergy is the combined working together of two or more parts of a system so that the combined effect is greater than the sum of the efforts of the parts. In business and technology, the term describes a hoped-for or real effect resulting from different individuals, departments, or companies working together and stimulating new ideas that result in greater productivity.

Symbiosis is about different medium working together for each other’s benefit. For example, a book is a medium. It is transformed into a play and shown in a theatre. Then, a production house makes a movie based on the play. Again, a television company uses the movie for its operation time. Here, different media like book, theatre, film, television work with each other and gain benefit.

Vertical and horizontal integration

Vertical integration is where an institution has shares or owns each part of the production and distribution process.

Horizontal integration is where an organisation develops by buying up competitors in the same section of the market e.g. one music publisher buys out other smaller music publishers.