Getting To Grips With The TV & Film Industry

Im going to be researching the ownership of two companies in the TV and film industries.

 The first one ill be looking at is 20th Century Fox. It was founded on May 31st 1935 as a result of the merger of Fox Film Corporation which was founded by William Fox in 1915, and is now one of six major american film studios as of 2011.  It used to be privately owned up until 1985, when News Corporation took over. It's now a multi-national media conglomerate and a subsidiary of News Corporation owned by Rupert Murdoch. Over the years Fox has had to expand its studios and production facilities countless times, as the demand for more good films was getting higher, and there just wasnt enough room anymore. 20th Century Fox has 9 subsidiaries and its parent if the Fox Entertainment Group. It diversified itself into the world of music too, as well as film and it encompasses music publishing and licensing businesses, dealing primarily with Fox Entertainment Group television and film soundtracks. Fox has faced many finiacial problems but has overcome these, and still to this day is a very successful film company.

Structure and Ownership of the Media Sector

For this assignment i will be looking at 2 media companies. The first one is disney.


Disney was founded on October 16^th 1923, by Walt Disney as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. Thye then reincorporated the name into Walt Disney Productions, Ltd. in 1929, and became publicly-traded as Walt Disney Productions in 1938. Walt Disney established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before going into live- action film production, television and travel. Disney did more to touch the hearts, minds, and emotions of millions of Americans than any other man in the past century. Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into live-action film production, television, and travel. An early and well known cartoon creation of the company, Mickey Mouse, is the official Mascot of the World Disney Company. Taking on its current name in 1986, The Walt Disney Company expanded its existing operations and also started divisions focused upon theatre, radio, publishing, and online media. In reality, The Walt Disney Company stands as being the second largest media conglomerate in the world today. The company is best known for the products of its film studio, the Walt Disney Motion Group, and today is known for being one of the largest and best- known studios in Hollywood. Disney also owns ABC broadcast television network; cable television networks such as Disney Channel, ESPN and ABC family; publishing, merchandising and theatre divisions, and owns and licenses 14 theme parks around the World. This is how they diversified and expanded their business to reach a larger audience. It was a good idea to expand as Disney is very well-known all over the world and are so successful.   Some of Disney's animated family films have drawn fire for being accused of having sexual references hidden in them, among them are The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and The Lion King. Instances of sexual material hidden in some versions of  resulted in recalls and modifications of the films to remove such content. As Disney is mainly aimed at young children, the sexual intentions would not have been made on purpose. I think that the issue with only a few companies owning the worlds media is that it is going to get to a point where we will start beleiving everything we are hearing and being told, becuase the information will all be coming from one company.

Structure and Ownership of the Media Sector

The second company i will be looking it is News Corporation.

News Corporation is an American multinational media conglomerate which is the second largest in the world as of 2011 in terms of revenue. News Corporation is the world’s third largest in entertainment as of 2009. It is a diversified global media company with operations in six industry segments. The activities of News Corporation are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and Latin America. It is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and created in 1978 as a holding company for News Limited.  Rupert also created News Limited in 1952 with the assets he inherited off his father. On 4^th September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalized citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only United State citizens could own American television stations. News Corporation is involved in the media battle that divides America. It is right-winged as Ruper Murdoch is all for war and the British people. It is also statistically proven that news Corp is a little bit biased and can also make the unbeliveable news seem like the truth at times.