Structure and Ownership: Case Study

Structure and Ownership of Public and Private Media Companies

Public owned companies are companies that have sold an amount of itself to the public which means shareholders have claim to a fraction of the companies assets. A privately owned company is usually a smaller company which is owned by the founders or investors.

British Broadcasting Corporation - Public

'Separate operational areas manage the day to day working of the BBC. These include the Director-General's Office and Management Board, Audio and Music, BBC North, Finance and Business, Future Media, News Group and Vision.'

It is important to note that the BBC have three commercial subsidiaries which are BBC Worldwide, BBC World News and BBC Studios ( and Post Production ). 

Structure
Royal Charter - This is a document which gives a grant to a company or an individual. The BBC is established under a charter and the charter in effect today began in 2007. It's objective is to set out the BBC's public purpose.

BBC Trust - BBC Trust is under the charter and sets the direction of the company, in basic terms it lays down the road map of where to take the BBC. It also is entitled to act on behalf of the licence fee payers. They must understand the needs of their audience.

Executive Board - The Executive Board has many responsibilities, they include; delivering the BBC's services and running the business with the strategy set by the BBC Trust.

Media Regulators - Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) takes responsibility for the Government's regulation duties. Ofcom is an independent regulator and they have duties to regulate, television, radio, telecommunications and wireless communications.  

Global Radio - Private

I will look at Global Radio Holdings Ltd who are the largest commercial radio company in the country although they are in other segments too such as television and publishing.

Structure
Ashley Tabor - Founder & Executive President

Charles Allen - Chairman

Stephen Miron - Group CEO

Richard Park - Group Executive Director & Director of Broadcasting

Michael Connole - Chief Financial Officer

Mike Gordon - Managing Director 

Will Harding - Group Strategy & Development Director


http://www.thisisglobal.com/about-us/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/managementstructure/bbcstructure/

Income

The BBC make most of their money from the TV licence fee. 

'The money received from the fee represents approximately 75% of the cost of these services with most of the remainder coming from the profits of BBC Worldwide..' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence#United_Kingdom

As well as the TV licence fee, the BBC also sells many products linked with their popular shows such as DVD's and magazines. Magazines will be sold at most news agents and will commonly revolve around the BBC's most popular shows such as Top Gear. It's a similar case with the DVDs that the BBC sell which are usually popular series box sets.

Another way in which BBC could get income is from their websites. Although their TV channel doesn't show adverts, if residents outside of the U.K go on the BBC's websites advertisements are displayed.

Finally, BBC iPlayer is a service launched by BBC in 2007. It has been a consistent part of the BBC since that date as it allows users to catch up on shows they may have missed during the week. 

BBC iPlayer is so popular nowadays that the BBC released an iPlayer app for most smartphones. BBC iPlayer is also available free on Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, iPad, Sky and BT Vision.

Global Radio get their money from on air advertisements. Big companies will advertise on certain radio stations depending on the size and success of the radio station. Time of the day is also a big part of radio advertising similar to television advertisement. Generally, mornings are more valuable.

Global Radio Holdings Ltd own many radio stations as well as television stations. They will advertise on their to gain consistent income.