Sources of Income & Licenses and Franchises

Sources of Income

Like all businesses, there are a variety of ways that income is generated through advertising, sales and licenses.

Within the print industry, they gain revenue from selling advertising space, newsstand sales and subscription sales. 

There is a whole section of revenue that is portioned to advertising, instead of reiterating the the whole section, check out the advertising post here.

As well as the pesky television advertisements and half a magazines worth of brands you're so over, Film has a range of strategies to gain income, such as; box office, DVD sales, merchandise, soundtracks and books as well as anything else that the production and distribution companies decide to release. Most films manage to surpass the budget spent on the film's production.

In television, not only do they have adverts (obviously not the BBC... I know you're growing tired of hearing this) but on television shows such as X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing, they have voting lines which charge a minimum of 35p per vote. It may not seem so much per person, but when their audience ratings average over 8 million, they're income soon sky rockets. That's not to mention the competitions they hold each week which cost around £1 per entry.

Whilst this constitutes as part of advertising, it was not previously mentioned and it's something important to touch on. Sponsorships are when a company sponsors a product or production, for example; Talk Talk sponsor X Factor so their advertisements appear before the show, at the beginning and ending of the ad breaks and at the end of the show. It is reported that a 3 year sponsorship deal has cost Talk Talk £20 million.

Although this isn't media related, football teams are sponsored by companies; Liverpool are sponsored by Standard Chartered, Arsenal are sponsored by Fly Emirates etc.


Licenses and Franchises

The most important license in UK media industry is the TV License, responsible for broadcasting directly into your homes as it is being broadcast in real time. The first note is, if you watch or record television as it is being shown, you MUST have a television license. There are no two ways about it. This includes the use of all mobile devices, computers, laptops and anything that can present it in real time.

Other licenses include PPL which is a license a business or organisation must hold in order to broadcast music or music videos, these are issued to bars, nightclubs, work places, retail, hotels, factories, schools, gym etc. After administration costs are covered, the remaining money from the licenses is passed on to the PPL's registered members, thousands of performers and record companies who receive the royalties they deserve for their recorded music.

A media franchise is is the creation of a whole series of work based on an original piece of media (mostly fictional).

A prime example would be Harry Potter. The franchise first started in the form of multiple books, the first four had been released before the first film was distributed to theatres. In the end there were 8 films and 7 books (the film book being split into two films).

The whole Harry Potter franchise was such a phenomenon, not only were the books and films available, various companion books were released as well as action figures, merchandise, a shop opened in Kings Cross Station in London, LEGO, a theme park, video games, Rowling's Pottermore online project for fans, audio books, Warner Bros Studio Tour (studios tour in London where the films were made).

From book sales, DVD sales, box office, rentals and toy sales alone, the film has roughly grossed $24,751,000,000 (£14,769,664,230)