Industry- Key Terms

Question 1

What is Acquisition?

Answer 1

Where one media company buys most, if not all, of another media company to assume control of it.

Question 2

What is Circulation?

Answer 2

The number of copies a print publication distributes on an average day.

Question 3

What is a Conglomerate?

Answer 3

Two or more media companies engaged in entirely different media enterprises that fall under one corporate group, usually involving a parent company and many subsidiaries.

Conglomerates are often large, multi- industry and multinational.

Question 4

What is the definition of the Concentration of Media Ownership?

Answer 4

The idea that progressively fewer companies control increasing shares of the mass media.

Question 5

What is Convergence?

Answer 5

The merging together of previously distinct media technologies e.g. the smartphone is the convergence of computing, communication and content.

Question 6

What is Distribution?

Answer 6

The process of making a product available for the consumer. (Regulation, Marketing etc.)

Question 7

What is Diversification?

Answer 7

Where a media company expands into a range of media industries outside their core business e.g. a film company acquires a comic book publisher and a television network.

Question 8

What is the definition of Exhibition?

Answer 8

It’s how the audience sees the product e.g. in cinemas, on DVD or online.

Question 9

What is a Franchise?

Answer 9

A collection of related media in which several derivative works have been produced from an original creative work.

Question 10

What is Globalisation?

Answer 10

When the global reach of companies such as Disney blur the boundaries between distinct global markets.

Question 11

What is a High- Concept media production?

Answer 11

• Easily marketable, clearly defined characters, high production values, universal themes, hyperbole etc . Quite mainstream.

Question 12

What is Homogenisation?

Answer 12

A lack of diversity (in media production).

Question 13

What is Horizontal Integration?

Answer 13

An organisation develops by buying up competitors in the same section of the market e.g. one music company buys out other smaller music companies.

Question 14

What are Independents/ Independent Studios?

Answer 14

Studios that work outside the major studio system.

Question 15

What are the Major Studios?

Answer 15

The ‘big six’ diversified media conglomerates whose various film production and distribution subsidiaries collectively command approx 80 to 85% of US box office revenue.

Question 16

What is Marketing?

Answer 16

The promotion of media products through advertising and communications.

Question 17

What is a Monopoly?

Answer 17

Where one company dominates the market.

Question 18

What is an Oligopoly?

Answer 18

It’s where a small number of companies dominate the market in one particular industry.

Question 19

What is Production?

Answer 19

It’s how the media product has been made (ownership, funding, planning, talent, development, production values, content, format etc.)

Question 20

What is Public Service Broadcasting?

Answer 20

Media outlets whose primary mission is public service and to please/ entertain the large variety of the members of public. It is funded by the government, especially via annual fees for a service or in the case of the BBC the TV license fee.

Question 21

What is Regulation?

Answer 21

The control or guidance of mass media by governments or other bodies via law, rules or procedures with the goal of protecting “public interest” and establishing common technical/ media standards.

Question 22

What is a Subsidiary?

Answer 22

A company that is owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company.

Question 23

What is Vertical Integration?

Answer 23

When a media company owns different businesses in the same chain of production and distribution e.g. when a publishing arm owns a printing facility.