How does media ownership have an impact on the successful distribution of media products in the media area you have studies.

Media ownership has a great impact on the successful distribution of media products in the film industry. Walt Disney is one of the world’s largest media conglomerates. Disney owns many different smaller companies as well, a main one being Pixar. It also owns all of the Marvel characters, apart from Spiderman. Disney is known for producing high budget movies. It is part of the oligopoly of the Big Six, giving it a great amount of power on the film industry.

One of its biggest, recent movies is Maleficent which had a production budget of $170,000,000 USD. Disney made back nearly a quarter of the amount of money spent on the movie on the movie’s opening weekend in the United States alone. Due to the size of the Disney institution, the company was able to produce and distribute their film independently in the US and UK. They used social media to promote their film, which cost little-to-no money and also produced many YouTube trailers and teasers. The film also had its own webpage where people could find out more information about the film. This website also had activities for young children to get them excited for the release of the film. There were also traditional marketing techniques used such as television trailers and posters/billboards which also helped to create awareness and hype for the film. The film was filmed using high-end cameras and was also filmed and showed to the audience in 3D. This helps to deal with the increasing levels of piracy which is a never-ending problem for Disney and the rest of the Big Six.

In 2013, the British Film Institute released an independent film, The Selfish Giant. The film was directed by Clio Barnard, who was already known in the British film industry for her short films and documentaries. The production budget was a massive contrast with the production budget of Maleficent at only £1.4 million. The Selfish Giant was distributed by Film4. There was not much money available for the marketing of the film and so the distributers relied heavily on the reviews that the film was given to promote their film. They also had posters up in the London Underground and also had some page advertisements in magazines. 

The BFI produce films for a much more niche market than Disney does who produces films that can be enjoyed by a large variety of people. Disney can also sell cinema tickets much more easily than the BFI can as they have more money to market and distribute their film. It is also easier for Disney as they have a much bigger and well-respected name for themselves and have many positive connotations attached to their company, therefore they will never have a problem with selling tickets as their films are on very high demand.

This concludes that media ownership has a massive impact on the distribution of films, due to money and name, making it impossible for small companies to be able to distribute their film successfully and compete with the Big Six. Distribution is very important in making back the money spent on a film because if a film is not distributed it is not seen by the audience, therefore no matter how good a film is it cannot make any money.