The Global North/South divide is very distinguishable when it comes to economy and politics. Another industry that is also distinguishable is the media industry. Throughout time the media industry has played a huge role in our lives and has allowed many platforms to make their mark. The United Kingdom is in the Global North and has a population of 59,647,790. The United Kingdom has a part in more than one industry, they play a part in Television, Film, News, Music, Gaming etc… The industry explored in this article will be the Television industry. The United Kingdom currently has 228 television stations and the number of television sets that they have is 30,500,000. The total amount of cable subscribers they have is 3,396,930 and number of satellite subscribers is 5,200,000[1] . The first public demonstration of television in the UK was in 1926 and this was to the members of the royal institution. This demonstration was by John Logie Baird in his London Laboratory. The following year he demonstrated long distance transmission of television pictures over telephone lines from London to Glasgow[2]
The public service media is created and broadcasted for the benefit of the public rather than for the gain of commercial uses. The Cambridge dictionary states that regulation is “an official rule or the act of controlling something.” In the United Kingdom OFCOM’s regulates some of these public service medias. Their regulations mean that certain Television stations need to include specific amounts of public service as part of their licence if they want to broadcast. An example of this is the BBC whom established their channel in 1992 to be a publicly owned and commercially funded public service. ITV And Channel five also have important duties enforced as part of their licence if they want to broadcast. Public service is typically funded by the government, but taxpayers usually pay for it and their aim is to provide a service which caters to all citizens and it usually has to be culturally inclusive. The BBC are another example of this their aim is to ‘Inform, Educate and Entertain’. The BBC can also be seen to be quite diverse as they try to bring together different social classes through the programmes they show for example royal broadcasts, football, proms, the news etc. They aim to stay neutral and try to broadcast fairly which is supposed to enable democracy.
Ownership is a big question when it comes to the media industry. In the UK a handful of giant corporations own the media industry which brings out the question of freedom when the control is handed to this elite select few. It also brings about the question of independence “when most influential media organisations are controlled by individuals and boards that are so closely connect with vested interest.”[3]. The majority of the Major UK broadcasters are owned by either UK based companies or publicly owned like the BBC. There is a rise in American companies infiltrating themselves on the UK television ownership and example of this is Sky. Sky is the biggest broadcaster in the UK and Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox owns 39.1% of it. He has been reported to be preparing to bid for full ownership or Sky. Virgin Media is also owned by an American corporation called Liberty Global and Channel Five is also owned by Viacom International which is a subsidiary of Viacom. There has also been rumours that the government is planning on selling Channel Four a publicly owned channel to the highest bidder. The biggest broadcaster in terms of revenue is also Sky News with £7.6 Billion and the BBC is the largest with £5.1 Billion with £3.7 billion coming from the TV license paid for by the public. [4]. However, the Media Form’s ‘Who owns the UK report’ states that in terms of viewing the BBC dominates shares with 33.1% being their share of viewing, ITV is the second largest commercial public service broadcaster with 22% of shares of viewing and Sky only accounts for 8.2%. The Media Form’s ‘Who owns the UK report’ also states that “there is a long-established policy principle in the UK that public responsibilities should be attached to significant media power, up to now this principle has been involved in respect of broadcasting but as media markets and services converge it is increasingly applicable to other platforms. There is a need to ensure that dominant media groups that are not currently subject to public service regulation are nevertheless held accountable to the public interest.”
[1] http://www.pressreference.com/Sw-Ur/The-United-Kingdom.html
[2] https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/chronology-british-television/
[3] http://www.mediareform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Who_owns_the_UK_media-report_plus_appendix1.pdf
[4] http://www.mediareform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Who_owns_the_UK_media-report_plus_appendix1.pdf
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