scholarly journals Television production: configuring for sustainability in the digital era

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Doyle
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Effective Management ◽  
Market Conditions ◽  
Commercial Success ◽  
Television Production ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Corporate Activity ◽  
Key Variables

Over recent years leading independent television production companies in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe have become prime targets for corporate activity, and many have been subject to takeover, often by US media groups. Why is it that nurturing the development of television production companies which achieve scale but, at the same time, remain independent appears to be so challenging? This article considers which factors are crucial to the success of television production businesses and argues that, besides the ability to make compelling content, two key variables which strongly affect commercial success and sustainability in this sector are, first, effective management and exploitation of intellect property rights (IPRs) and, second, scale and configuration of activities. Focusing primarily on the latter, it analyses how changing technological and market conditions are affecting the advantages conferred by size and by adopting differing cross-ownership configurations thus, in turn, fuelling current processes of industrial re-structuring.

scholarly journals Energy, Typicality, and Music Sales

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian C. North ◽  
Amanda E. Krause ◽  
Lorraine P. Sheridan ◽  
David Ritchie
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Ecological Validity ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Market Conditions ◽  
Commercial Success ◽  
Musical Preference ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Relationship

Research on musical preference has been dominated by two approaches emphasizing, respectively, the arousal-evoking qualities of a piece or its typicality of the individual’s overall musical experience. There is a dearth of evidence concerning whether either can explain preference in conditions of high ecological validity. To address this, the present research investigated the association between sales of 143,353 pieces of music, representing all the music that has enjoyed any degree of commercial success in the United Kingdom, and measures of both the energy of each piece (as a proxy for arousal) and the extent to which each piece was typical of the corpus. The relationship concerning popularity and energy was U-shaped, which can be reconciled with earlier findings, and there was a positive relationship between the typicality of the pieces and the amount of time they featured on sales charts. The population-level popularity of an entire corpus of music across several decades can be predicted by existing aesthetic theories, albeit with modifications to account for market conditions.

scholarly journals After the gold rush: industrial re-configuration in the UK television production sector and content

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (7) ◽  
pp. 939-957
Author(s):  
Gillian Doyle ◽  
Kenny Barr
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Gold Rush ◽  
Television Industry ◽  
Production Sector ◽  
Corporate Takeovers ◽  
Television Production ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Television Content ◽  
The Uk

Recent technological and market changes in the television industry appear to have transformed the corporate configurations which conduce to economic success in the production industry. As a result, many leading independent television production companies in the United Kingdom and elsewhere across Europe have become prime targets for corporate activity and many have been subject to takeover, often by the US media groups. Does this matter? Does the concept of ‘national’ television content still have any relevance in the digital era? Drawing on a multiple-case-study-based analysis of several UK-based television production companies over recent years, this article examines how corporate takeovers in the production sector may affect creative decision-making and impact on the nature and quality of television content. Against a background of increased investment interest from multinationals in indigenous players in the United Kingdom and across Europe, the analysis presented makes a timely and policy-relevant contribution to knowledge.

Coalition Stories: Cases from the Iraq Coalition

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Baum ◽  
Philip B. K. Potter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Opposition ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Public Media ◽  
European Public ◽  
Key Variables

This chapter examines the decisions of the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, and Poland regarding whether they would join with the United States in the Iraq coalition, the goal of which was to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Among these countries, there was much variation in both key variables identified as the ingredients of constraint and in the extent to which leaders were responsive to pressure from either their domestic publics or the United States. The key lesson from these case studies is that democratic constraint is fragile and elusive. These cases point to a variety of means by which policy makers outmaneuvered a consistently antiwar European public. Media and partisan political opposition are clearly an important part of the overall story and, more significantly, are among the few factors that hold steady from case to case.

scholarly journals The effective management of national hydrometric data: experiences from the United Kingdom

2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (7) ◽  
pp. 1383-1399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Dixon ◽  
Jamie Hannaford ◽  
Matthew J. Fry
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Effective Management ◽  
The United Kingdom

The Business of Multi-Platform Public Service: Online and at a Profit

2013 ◽  
Vol 146 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Bennett ◽  
Andrea Medrado
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Video On Demand ◽  
Content Creation ◽  
Television Production ◽  
On Demand ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Privately Owned

In this article, we explore the notion of hybrid public service media (PSM) in relation to two interconnected issues: economic and platform hybridity. We examine the creation of PSM content by privately owned, commercially driven independent production companies in the United Kingdom as a hybrid economic arrangement. In so doing, we ask not only whether public service can act as a motivation beyond profit for production cultures and business models, but also whether PSM can be created at a profit without compromising the fulfilment of public service values. In relation to platform hybridity, we study examples of interlinking public service content created, delivered and distributed across multiple platforms (as opposed to merely video-on-demand services). In particular, we are interested in how such multi-platform texts might fulfil public service, but also the way in which multi-platform content creation brings together digital and television production cultures to produce hybrid PSM business models and cultures.

scholarly journals Public policy, independent television production and the digital challenge

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Doyle
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Business Performance ◽  
Production Sector ◽  
Television Production ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Digital World ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Media

Television production is a vital component of the media and a sector whose performance has important cultural and economic ramifications. In the United Kingdom, the growing prosperity of the programme-making sector – attributable partly to historic policy interventions – is widely recognized as being a success story. However, a recent wave of corporate consolidation and takeovers, characterized by many leading UK production companies being bought out and often by US media conglomerates, has raised concern about the ability of the independent production sector to flourish in an increasingly globalized and competitive digital environment for television. Although preserving indigenous television production and associated audience access to locally made content remain important goals for media policy, achieving these has become more difficult in the face of trends towards consolidated ownership and ‘the emergence of powerful transnational platforms commercialising cultural goods and services online’ (García Leiva and Albornoz 2017: 10). This article examines the challenges raised for public policy as ownership structures in the television production sector adjust in response to new distribution technologies and to the transformative forces of digitalization and globalization. Focusing on the United Kingdom as an example, it asks do we still need television production companies that are indigenous and independent in a digital world and if so why? What role can and should public policy play in supporting the sustainability of an ‘indie’ sector? Drawing on recent original empirical research into the association between corporate configuration, business performance and content in the television production sector, it reflects critically on historic and recent approaches to sustaining independent producers and it considers how, in a digital world, public policy may need to be re-imagined for a rapidly evolving television landscape.

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