The Sector Section: Television

Television is one of the biggest sectors (and very competitive) within the media industry which employs over 500,000 British people.

There are many small broadcasters that control the television shows we view daily, however there are a few bigger companies who dominate large chunks of the stations hence the reason there are channels with '+1' or another variation of the original channel.

These main broadcasters are; 

- BBC - The BBC is a public company which is funded by the TV license

- ITV - ITV is a private company funded by advertisements. It is 60% owned by ITV PLC as well as being owned by STV Group PLC (Scotland) and UTV (Northern Ireland).

- Channel 4 - This is a private company, funded by advertising.

- Channel 5 - This is also a private company, owned by Northern & Shell.

The BBC own 9 channels in total such as BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, CBBC, Cbeebies, BBC Parliament, BBC News, BBC Alba.

ITV own; ITV, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, CITV and The Store as well as all of the '+1' channels.

Channel 4 own; Channel 4, 4seven, Film4, E4, More4, 4music, Box Television and '+1' channels.

Channel 5 own; Channel 5, 5*, 5 USA and the '+1'  (and +24) channels. 

I hope that was informative enough and didn't bore you to tears! It's quite interesting finding out how television is sub-categorised and part own by different companies and corporations.