In today’s lecture we looked at commercial media. What it
is, its function, the big players in commercial media, what they produce and commercial
media’s future.
Commercial media is non-government funded media that relies
on advertisers as its real customers rather than its audience. Commercial
media’s success is based on its business success. In Australia, commercial
media’s biggest players are Fairfax media, News Limited, APN News Media, Nine
Entertainment, WIN, Southern Cross Entertainment, Seven West Media and Channel
Ten. They produce a range of different media platforms such as free to air TV
channels, cable TV, radio stations, magazines and newspapers as well as play a
part in companies such as Ticketek and ADSHEL.
What I found particularly interesting about the lecture was
when we were discussing the future of commercial media. Basically, unless
changes are made to it, commercial media, especially radio, doesn’t have much
of a future at all. People are sick of hearing ad after ad, the same one
playing four times an hour. Because of this, they prefer public media like ABC
and SBS, because what their viewing or listening to is interrupted by an
advertisement. I found this a little surprising because usually we associate a
future of a company with the amount of money people are able to invest in it,
and advertisers do put a lot of money into commercial media. We think money is
power, and that because of the money commercial media receives from
advertisers, they will continue to run as they are and smoothly for many years
to come while public media that doesn’t receive such large investments will
struggle in the future. I found this to be pleasantly surprising, like the
“voice” of the people, the audiences, does actually matter and we get to have a
say in what we want in our media.
Overall, I found today’s lecture interesting, I certainly
learnt a lot of new things about how something like advertising can be the
reason a media company survives or fails.
-Laura
27/08/2012
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