Television

Television is the most important part in the media industry. It contains over 55,800 employees who work in this sector alone. The average British viewer watches over twenty hours a week.

There is over 850 independent television companies, these are companies that produce the main TV programmes like; X Factor, Big Brother, Life on Mars. The greater companies can earn £100-200 million per annual. There are around nine terrestrial broadcasters, the output to these are through land based transmitters. The well-known ones are:

·         BBC

·       ITV

·       Channel 4

·       Five

 
These companies are also part of the public service media.

There are about 300 satellite and cable broadcasters operating at this time but unfortunately for them the major international companies such as:

·         BSkyB

·         Virgin Media

·         Disney

·         Discovery

These are dominating this market.

 
Television in the industry is changing quickly due to the improvements it has under gone over the years. Some of the changes that have occurred are:

·       The growth of broadband is faster than predicted in the UK.

·       The globalisation of TV is increasing.

·       The audience prefer to watch the content and programmes rather than the schedule and channels.

The BBC is funded through the public TV license fees. It is a cross media company as the TV channel is linked with the radio and interactive media sectors.

ITV is funded through its advertisements; it also crosses media with the interactive media and sector.