Television Ownership

There are two types of television ownership. These are public and private.


Public ownership includes the BBC, and is what we pay our TV licence for. It is paid for, and therefore owned, by the public, and everything it does must be in the public's best interest. Advantages of this type of ownership include the ability for people to complain via e-mail, text, letter, etc., and then the BBC will look into your issue and do its best to improve the service. Also, as the BBC works to serve the public, it has to be unbiased and not give personal opinions and it cannot attempt to influence the audience's views. Disadvantages of this type of ownership is that there is not always a variety of programmes, or the programmes they show may not always appeal to everyone. The BBC only produces its own shows and does not show, for example, shows from America. Other TV channels will bring those shows to this country making them more popular among many people. Another disadvantage of publicly owned television is that you have to pay a licence fee for it, which some people do not agree with.


Private ownership is funded by adverts and has an agenda, which are major disadvantages. It will put popular shows on in order to gain more viewers, and does not often do things in the public's best interest. Privately owned television does not have the same standards as privately owned TV, and can be biased. Often, privately owned TV channels, such as Dave, will re-run popular shows almost constantly to attract viewers. An advantage of privately owned television is that you do not have to pay a licence fee for it, however unless you have a TV with built in Freeview, you will still have to pay for services such as Virgin or Sky. Another advantage of privately owned television is that there is often a wider variety of shows of different genres and from different countries, which is seen as more interesting to a lot of people.

Media Industry Sectors

The media industry comprises 9 main sectors. These are:

• Publishing;
• Radio;
• Television;
• Film;
• Advertising;
• Photo imaging;
• Interactive media;
• Animation;
• Games.

Publishing is the oldest of these industries. Currently, there are over 190, 000 people employed in this sector. Over 51, 000 people are emplpoyed in the newspaper industry, 50, 500 work in journals and magazines, 33, 000 work in the book industry, and there are nearly 12, 000 in other information services.



There are three main types of radio operating today. Publicly-funded radio, commercial radio and the community and voluntary radio sector - from well-established student and hospital radio to the most recently licensed community radio stations - are the three types of radio stations operating in the UK today. This industry currently employs over 2, 200 people, however, these numbers will likely begin to see a gradual downfall in the next few years due to new technology making radio seem archaic.



The UK teleision industry has nine terrestrial television stations, whose output is broadcast through land-based transmitters. These include the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, S4C, SMG and UTV. There are also around 300 cable and satellite stations.



The games industry began its rise in the 1980s with games such as Tetris and Pac-Man. Today, the games industry is huge, with games like Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto and World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft alone currently has around 9 million worldwide users, paying subscriptions of £9 a month, which equals a monthly outcome of £81 million.  



The photo imaging industry is made up of many companies, around a third of which are sole trading or freelance photographers. The remaining compainies in this sector can be divided into five catagories. These are:

• Image producers;
• Photo retail;
• Picture libraries and agencies;
• Manufacturers;
• Support services (such as equiptment hire and repair).

The total workforce of photo imaging in the UK comprises around 43,100 people. 51% of these people work in the south of England. The workforce there is concentrated to London and the south east with some 38% based there.

The interactive media sector is an industry which is rapidly growing, but has blurred boundries. It is defined as a form of media which the public can interact with, and as such, it overlaps into many areas. The most popular interactive media companies are social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

In the UK, there are currently around 34,300 people employed in the interactive media sector, representing around 7% of the creative media industries.