Mass Communication in the Marketplace: Despicable Me 2 Despicable Me 2, an animated film distributed by Universal Studios and Illumination Entertainment in July of 2013 grossed $970,065,385 world-wide (BoxOffice, 2014). The film was a success for its distributors and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2014 for Best Animated Feature Film. Chris Meledandri, who is the president and CEO of Illumination Entertainment, has an exclusive working agreement with Universal Studios and does the production and animation work on feature films (Barnes, 2011). Universal Studios will be considered the main distributor of the Despicable Me 2 film and will constitute the bulk of the research completed for this paper.
Universal Studios Hierarchy
…show more content…
Comcast controls multiple NBC and MNBC news outlets, which provides an example of horizontal concentration of media (McQuail, 2010). Additionally, Comcast has the ability to develop film projects with NBCUniversal, from funding and design to filming and finally distribution and home market delivery with the cable portion of the company making it a vertical concentration as well (McQuail, 2010). Another vertical aspect of the company is the Internet delivery of film and television through the NBCUniversal company, Hulu (NBCUniversal, 2014). All of this media content is supported by Comcast’s technical portion of the company which provides cable equipment and technology to deliver the content to its customers (Comcast, 2014). Comcast and NBCUniversal provide products and services in a concentrated market due to the addition of the addition of Telemundo and their production services (NBCUniversal, 2014). The Latino community has a wide variety of Spanish speaking cable channels as well as the most prolific Spanish production company, Telemundo (NBCUniversal). Supported by the technical offerings of Comcast and NBCUniversal, Telemundo offers programming of feature films, game shows, soap operas, and situation comedies exactly like all of the English speaking networks that Comcast offers in their cable lineup, this is another example of vertical integration with Comcast contributing the funding,
The media industry in the United States of America (US) is one such industry. As a powerful communication tool, the media has attracted many companies but only a handful has grown big. These media giants have dominated the local market and are currently seeking to conquer the global media industry in search of better profits.
Are you aware that six corporations control 90% of the media In America? The Media Industry is changing everyday, companies must continually change the way they deliver products to the public. Some of the best examples of how companies are using new media to distribute products are Carnival Films, and Youtube. Carnival Film is the production company behind Downton Abbey. You Tube is a video sharing sight that started out as a place for John Q. Public to post his home movies. YouTube has become an internet phenomenon and a distribution point for features film, music videos and TV shows. It is important to understand how the companies use the internet to air the products. More important to us the consumer is to understand who owns
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”. In the media industry everyone is always wanting to gain more power, the more power you have, the larger audience mass you gain. “Comcast” as a type of organisational company owns many media sectors and these include; video, high speed internet, phone, advertising, franchise fees, cable, corporate, NBS cable networks, NBC Broadcasting television, Universal Filmed Entertainment, Universal Theme parks and NBC Universal. Here is a chart demonstrating their revenue income
In Derek Thompson’s article “Prisoners of Cable” (Thompson, 2012), Thompson wrote why consumers in the US were the prisoners of the cable bundle. In this essay, I will provide a brief analysis of the article written by Derek Thomson and discuss about how the proposed merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable and AT&T and Time Warner apply.
For the past ten years, Hulu has been among the most competitive online streaming services. Beginning as a joint venture created by 21st Century Fox and NBCUniversal to “distribute their television programming over the Internet,” (Harvard 2017) Hulu has expanded generously, offering the four largest broadcasting networks. In the wake of a new television era, Hulu has the potential to serve as a Multichannel Video Programming Distributor (MVPD). The following write-up includes an analysis of Hulu’s current market standings, including an investigation of growth statistics as well as the company’s overall marketing situation.
The authors also include Pixar fans, including me, as their intended audience and hope to generate more thoughtful consideration regarding the films from them before they blinding accept all the information Pixar
In recent years, animated programs have dominated the world of film and TV in both America and Japan. These programs, known as cartoons and anime, are some of the most popular forms of entertainment today. Anime and cartoon shows, such as One Piece and Family Guy, have been running for decades and are very well known among society. Animated films such as Disney’s The Lion King and Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away have also thrived and even surpassed animated television shows in some instances. Both American and Japanese animation industries have flourished, and their cartoons and animes continue to grow in popularity. However, similarities and differences between the two soon arise when compared closely; these observations are often what lead fans to prefer one style over the other as well as shape pop culture.
To consider children as consumers of Disney is not a new idea. Princess culture “includes a vast array of material objects and media representations, but also marketing rhetoric and weighty expert studies of children as consumers” (Orr 9). If a company gains the loyalty of a child then they have a customer for life. Marketing campaigns “that accompany each new animated feature” for Disney have admitted to “the targeting of children as consumers” (Lacroix 226). Not only do children consume Disney merchandise, like the toys marketed through McDonald’s Happy Meals, but they are also “taught to consume ideas” (226). Henry Giroux calls the films “teaching machines” and “producers of culture” (“Are Disney Movies Good” 53). Disney is the biggest producer of princess culture and the Disney Princess films “comprise five out of six top revenue-generating Disney films of all time” (Wohlwend 10). When it comes to Disney animated films, the princesses are the popular kids in school.
This partnership will allow Broadway video to complete projects faster which also being able to utilize teams from both offices to produce the best results for the client (Globenewswire.com, 2015). Along with its recent partnership with Aspera, Broadway Video has also recently launched a Latino focused digital studio. In a partnership with NCBUniversal Telemundo, it will not be creating and distributing the content targeting the Latino community (Verhoeven, 2015). This partnership will help Broadway Video expand the reach of its product to a different community. By getting a product out to this community they then can hope that they will come back and utilize some of their other
Hulu sets themselves apart from their main competitor, Netflix, by offering the current seasons of shows as early as the day after they air on TV. But, this is starting to concern one of their main investors, Time Warner. Time Warner, is concerned with Hulu’s business model because they fear consumers will drop their “pay-TV subscriptions” (Hagey & Ramachandran, 2016). While Time Warner has a stake in the success of Hulu, they are concerned that Hulu will
TVI is “the era of channel scarcity, the mass audience, and the three-network hegemony” (Pearson [Jenner, 2]). TVII is “ the era of channel/network expansion, quality television, and network branding strategies” (Pearson [Jenner, 2]). TVIII is “the era of proliferating digital distribution platforms, further audience fragmentation, and…a shift from second-order to first-order commodity relations” (Pearson [Jenner, 2]). While these distinctions are made, they are not necessarily set in stone. Hence the introduction of TVIV. Netflix “draws into question the previous notions of multi-platform as television, due to its independence from more traditional modes…” (Jenner, 3). Michael Curtin argues that there is an alternative means of understanding the current television trend, that of matrix media. “The matrix era is characterized by interactive exchanges, multiple sites of productivity and diverse modes of interpretation and use” (Curtin [Jenner, 4]). The entrance of Netflix as both a television producing and streaming system has led to the argument for TVIV, which “can be understood as an era of matrix media where viewing patterns, branding strategies, industrial structures, the way different media forms interact with each other or the various ways content is made available shift completely away from the television set” (Jenner, 4). Netflix does fit into TVIII’s guidelines in many ways, but its format is different from the existing
Growing competition as a challenge represents the various companies that are now entering the market of online media-streaming. Companies such as HBO, Amazon, Google, and Hulu Plus have all began to offer media-streaming on the same electronic devices as Netflix, Inc. Currently Netflix, Inc. remains in the lead amongst its competitors; however, there is no guarantee that this advancement is a permanent one. It is inevitable that emerging companies will come up with creative ideas to gain the competitive edge and receive more consumers. For example, Amazon.com has “amplified
However, Televisa isn't exclusive to the Hispanic world, also offering distribution to the United States via a Programming License Agreement with Univision, in order to bring its television content to additional markets in the US. This agreement has brought Televisa significant revenue, which is only projected to increase in the coming years under Salvi Rafael Folch
Disney has become a marketing goliath and the #1 entertainment company in the US. They have been able to develop a creativity-driven philosophy that over time was tempered by financial responsibility and that benefitted from powerful synergies between its divisions. From the very beginning, Disney has been synonymous with innovation within the children’s entertainment industry, from their introduction of animations with synchronized audio, full-length animated feature films and then later into theme parks and on-ice and Broadway shows. One important element of Disney’s success was the extent to which they integrated and expanded into different
Recently, Time Warner collaborated with other media companies by acquiring a small percentage of Hulu, in an effort to sustain a future in the new trend of online streaming services. TW invested a hefty $583 million cash stake, joining forces with other media giants Comcast, Walt Disney, and 21st Century Fox. The timing is the reaction Time Warner is making to the onset of major competitors on the horizon such as Netflix and Amazon, and they have a long way to go to catch up. The timing was also based on Hulu’s need for big capital to stay afloat. They were on the verge of suffering a crippling $500 million loss, which the funding from TW alone saved them from. As stated by Time Warner’s CEO, Jeff Bewkes, “Our investment in Hulu underscores Time Warner’s commitment to supporting and developing new platforms for the delivery of high-quality content and great consumer experiences to audiences around the globe,”.