- The characteristics of contemporary distribution in the media area they have studied
- Cinema
- Beginning to become less used
- More inconveniences involved due to travel, tickets, bookings
- Online Streaming
- Beginning to become more used
- More convenient due to ease of access, portability and freedom of environment
- Caused the massive hollywood decline in the early 2000's which caused holly wood to need to invest in Megafranchises such as the Avengers
- How distribution is reliant on production and consumption practices
- Integration
- Vertical Integration
- The Guardians of the Galaxy
- Produced by Marvel
- Distributed by Disney
- Exhibition Pacific Theatres (USA)
- Horizontal Integration
- Disney owns different production companies
- How key products/ services are consumed by local, national and/ or global audiences
- Cross media ownership
- Examples from Disney
- ESPN
- Advertising Star Wars at the Superbowl
- ABC Television
- Advertising Starwars
- Shows dominance over different forms of media
- Creates brand loyalty due to customers being able to consume products from different types of media companies but ultimately going to the same company of disney
- Synergy
- Disney Pixar's Ratatouille
- Created Ratatouille the Video Game
- Allowed customers from the video game industry to enjoy the game as well as promoting the movie by taking players loosely through the narrative of the movie.
- The significance of distribution in relation to the media area they have studied
- Different marketing strategies
- Money involved
- In-house distribution - less money to pay
Essay
The world of media production is widely accepted as an environment whereby conglomerate institutions are the dominant companies who hold the largest market share within the media industry, accountable to a wide audience due to their influence, clientele base and customer loyalty. Specifically, Disney is a company who own, produce and distribute in many different areas of media.Contemporary distribution of media is changing in terms of how customers consume different types of media. Firstly the frequency of people who go to the cinema has decreased due to the amount of people that go to the cinema becoming less and less. This is due the inconveniences that come with going to watch a movie in the cinema in comparison to alternative methods of consuming media, for example, online streaming. This has become a more common way of consuming media. This is due to the fact that being able to stream allows the viewer to be able to watch what they want when they want. Due to the fact that this is more convenient, customers would be more likely to want to watch a movie or a TV show from their own devices as opposed to going to the cinema. Going to the cinema involves costs for things such as petrol, tickets, food and drink and any other additional expenses. However, through streaming, this alleviates those costs due to the fact that you can watch what you want from the comfort of your own home. This however has been a massive problem for Hollywood. In the early 2000's the amount of people that went to the cinema was so low that box office rates plummeted and the Hollywood wasn't making enough money. The solution Disney decided to come to was to create a mega-franchise movie, therefore they purchased Marvel studios in 2003 and created their mega-franchise, which we know today as ‘The Avengers’. This meant that the production of this movie, due to having an already loyal fan base plus any additional movies that can be produced and add to the main story line, would allow people to be more willing to go to the cinema and watch and follow the plot line. To this day, the franchise has generated over a billion dollars in revenue and with the upcoming sub-films such as civil war will further increase the level of revenue generated, ensuring that Hollywood can stay alive. This shows how Disney have been the ones to save the movie industry which gives them more of an market share within the cinematic world, dominating the competition that they have from other producers.
The distribution of movies is reliant on the way in which people consume media, which in turn will allow Disney to receive money from different areas of media. Disney is described as both horizontally and vertically integrated. An example of their vertical integration is from the movie guardians of the galaxy. This movie was produced by the Disney owned company, marvel, and distributed by Disney. Therefore this shows how Disney owns the different necessary stages involved in the production of a movie, in this case, from production to distribution. In doing so, Disney is able to save money by using their own company's production and distribution channels as opposed to using external distribution or production channels and therefore have more control over how the business is marketed. Furthermore, Disney is also horizontally integrated. They own many different production companies. They began with Disney studios, which were creating 2d animation, such as sleeping beauty, in the early 60’s, which was a new form of media that people hadn't seen before. However, production company Pixar studios began creating 3d animation such as toy story. This was becoming more popular due to the increased level of realism that was in the movie that made the characters much more reliable and therefore relatable, adding to the enjoyment of the movie watching experience. Then Disney bought Pixar and further increased their span of customers. Apart from marvel, Disney also own Touchstone pictures. This production studio is responsible for creating movies that are suited for an older audience, such as the movie ‘Runaway Bride’ staring Julia Roberts and Richard Geare. The combination of being horizontally and vertically integrated means that Disney further have more influence over their customers due to the fact that their wide audience as well as their ownership over different companies means that they are able to have a more increased clientele base and therefore have more control over the movie industry.
There are certain ways in which Disney ensures that a large audience around the world consumes their products and/or services. Firstly is their use of cross-media ownership. Disney owns ESPN, a sports channel that is very popular in the states. Recently there was the Superbowl, a globally televised event of a championship game of American football. This event also has celebrity endorsement, due to the famous half time performance being from big celebrities such as this year's line up: Beyoncé, Bruno Mars and Cold Play. At this time as well, Disney having bought Starwars launched the next movie in the sequel: Starwars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Due to the fact that the Superbowl was televised by ESPN, which comprises of an audience of stereotypically older people who could've been Starwars fans when the series was building up, Disney advertised the Starwars movie during the Superbowl. This is an example of how Disney show dominance of two different forms of media, film and television, and how they use them together in order to market their products. This creates brand loyalty as customers are able to consume media from different areas, i.e., through marvel studios or ESPN, but ultimately the customers are going to still be consuming media from Disney. Additionally, Disney also operates within a business of synergy. Pixar studios released the movie ratatouille in 2007, which was a very successful movie taking advantage of the 3d animation features that Pixar is known for. After the release of the movie, the ratatouille video game was released for PSP, PS2 and XBOX. This shows how synergy is utilised due to Disney enticing customers, who are interested in the video game industry and/or the movie industry, to watch the movie as well as play the game.
Finally, distribution is also a key factor in terms of being able to generate movie for Disney, which contrasts how the British film industry are able to market their movies and shows the difference dominance over the industry has. For example, the movie 'ill manors' was produced by plan b, an English rapper. As well as releasing a soundtrack for the movie, Plan B released a Twitter teaser whereby if the tweets promoting the movie were shared the person would be able to receive another part of the soundtrack. This was a clever tactic in order to promote the movie and generate more publicity for the film. This is dramatically contrasted to the ways in which Disney advertises their movies. Apart from the cross media ownership, Disney have the money to be able to advertise their movies on TV, radio, cinema and any other media outlet that they want to, including social media. This shows how Disney is one of the dominant company’s in the media industry, which allows them to generate money for their movies, therefore increasing in revenue for the company.
In conclusion, Disney are a very dominant production and distribution company that have a very large influence on their customers and are therefore able to utilise their market share to generate a lot of revenue from their products, be it media or non media products.
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