The Ownership of Media is separated into the two different ownership categories. These are the High-End Conglomerate companies, Specifically the Big Six, that dominate the market in terms of finances that enable them to market, produce, distribute and exhibit their product with the widest audience possible, usually stories are not original due to them having the finances to purchase rights to films and stories and develop films off this. On the flipside of this we have the smaller British productions known as independent companies, these companies rely on donations to fund their original content films. These low budget films are hard to distribute on the level that conglomerates operate due to the prices to market and play in cinemas, therefore will network broadcast their content on terrestrial channels such as Channel 4.

The ownership of media is a controversial topic because of the divide between the American Big Six companies and the smaller British Ones. The American Film Industry is dominated by these film companies. These are: Warner Brothers, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Columbia Pictures and Universal Pictures. The movies they produce saturate the market so much that their combined share in the entire movie market is an enormous 90%. Staying with the money aspect of it, They gross more internationally with a staggering $30bn, 3 times more ($10bn) than it does domestically. The reasoning behind this is because of the conglomerate movie studios have much larger budgets and therefore can afford to mass market their productions across different physical and digital platforms, Domestically and Internationally.

An example of the power of conglomerates is Disney. Disney is the second largest media conglomerate after Comcast. Due to its large international recognition they are able to perform different techniques in order to promote and sell their product. An Example of this would be Frozen (2013). The Walt Disney product had made $1.3bn in worldwide box office revenue, of which $400m was produced within the United States, this ranked it as the highest grossing animated film of all time. It also won two academy awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song (Let It Go). This large success was mainly down because it was a conglomerate brand with an established fan base and a large budget. This meant they were able to excel in means of production, marketing and exhibition of the film. Frozen had a $150 million budget, which was paid for by the Walt Disney Company themselves, due to them being the worlds largest media conglomerate.$150m seems like a lot but when they excel with a box office revenue of £1.3bn it seems like virtually nothing.

Upon release, Disney used synergy to create an aura around the film. With Disney attacking all different media sectors they were able to expose their new brand across to as many people as possible. Initially, the flagship song Let It Go was released on music streaming and downloading websites such as Spotify and iTunes as well as radio. Moreover, the song was also released on YouTube on Walt Disney Studios official YouTube account, with just over 2.5m subscribers. And at this current date, that being the 10th January 2017 it has accumulated 563m views. Let it Go was a huge part of their convergence and synergy. It allowed them to distribute the film by their song, which was an enormous success with their target audience, with the domino effect of selling the film. Moreover, Disney also mass produced and released the DVD of the film on the 18th March 2014. This enabled previous viewers to have a physical copy of the disk, this was so popular in fact that on its first day, Frozen sold

3.2 million Blu-Ray and DVD units in just its first day, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Likewise with these releases, Disney also made frozen a part of their popular theatrical brand Disney on Ice. This allows an audience to view the film as if it was unfolding in front of their eyes, but at a theatre setting on an ice rink. Frozen is now a huge part of this, with it still being the Flagship brand for marketing and advertising Disney on Ice even to this day, Metro Radio Arena, an arena based in Newcastle, was quoted as saying “Frozen is without a doubt the fastest selling Disney On Ice show in the history of this arena.” The attraction of Disney as a brand, added with the addition of a new princess to their line of other brands was a part of making this a success, their huge budget, of which they were able to profit enormously off was also another part of the success. However this success would not have came about as prominently if it wasn’t for the synergy and conversion used to go across different media platforms, promote the film on the biggest stages and also to distribute the film via mass production.

The film industry in Britain is a much more different picture than in the United States. In Britain, our film industries are completely blown out of the water by our American counter parts. The UK’s total box office has a 75% chunk allocated by the American film industry, moreover 90% of the box office in the UK was American Productions, with 18 out of 20 belonging to American imports. However Film4 are attempting to challenge the Oligopoly. Film4 are a company that are owned by Channel 4 a relatively smaller channel in the UK and therefore Film4 must source their funding from various different sources. Examples of these are the Lottery Fund, British Film Commissions and Film London. This is a stark contrast from Disney, with Disney being such a sustainable conglomerate, that they can use their own funding’s and profits to fund their projects. Moreover, They often have to rely on co productions as well with other small companies such as Focus Features. This is because they all need all the help they can get to create a production of professional standards. This means also they have to reinvest all their profits where possible onto future projects, meaning any small profits are

However, one aspect in which smaller companies usually trump conglomerates in is the originality area. Since 2002 Film4 have produced 79 different original films, these include This Is England, In Bruges, Slumdog Millionaire, Submarine and The Inbetweeners This Is England will be the film I will be comparing and analysing today in terms of their huge difference and contrasts between Frozen. Initially in terms of finances, the Budget of the film was £1.5m, this was funded from Film4 themselves and co funded by the UK Film Council national lottery fund, new line cinema also put £90,000 towards the project. This is dwarfed by the mammoth funding Disney had for Frozen. This is England was also shown only on 150 cinema screens in the U.K.. This makes sense as 75% of the British box office is taken up by the US film companies. And with Frozen making a total of $1.3bn overall, compared to the £5 made by this is England this is understandable. Because of this is England’s incredibly low budget, it relied on a technique known as Viral Marketing which involves u sing social media to create a hype around the film, creating a free marketing ploy, in which the target audience on social media will spread the name of the film. This is important for low budget films because they cannot afford to spend their budget on marketing, they must use all of the money on their production. Their marketing, regardless of technique, worked. They managed to pick up 10 awards,

including a BAFTA award along with highly respectable 7.7/10 from 100,000 votes. Main acclaims of this film is that the story telling is a triumph and so well written that it makes this original film a standalone. Nick James, editor of ‘Sight and Sound’ was quoted as saying “I forgot when watching Shane Meadows’ moving evocation of skinhead youth This is England at the London Film Festival, how culturally specific its opening montage might seem…What will people outside of Northern Europe make of the regalia of 1980’s skinheads from the midlands? Hopefully they will be intrigued. This Is England made me realise, too, that some British films are at last doing exactly what Sight and Sound has campaigned for; reflecting aspects of British life gain and maybe suffering the consequences of being harder to sell abroad.”

In Conclusion it would appear that smaller up and coming writers and production companies are being put off by creation of projects because of the domination of the big six. With the North American box office being 90% of the big six, and the UK Box office being 75% of the Big Six. It is extremely hard to compete, especially when the mass marketing is constantly exposed to us. Lower budget British films rely on social media and word of mouth to advertise their highly original films. For me personally I prefer the films that come from the United States. Although the relatability and originality from the British films are much more better and gripping, the larger budgets do show through. With better, famous actors, much more ambitious story telling and ambitious locations, with world class directors and money for special effects, marketing and a whole host of other components that make the US film productions a much more better value for money and overall experience. The British film productions must try to level the playing field and create a level of equality of content with the US productions and take back the market, which is being dominated by American Films.