Radio Industry / Audience C1SB

Component One Section B - Industry

Radio - 12 to 15 marks

Late Night Women's Hour

Who owns this media product? Who owns them? Are they are of a conglomerate and / or vertically integrated?

LNWH Owned by the BBC, BBC is public owned, i.e. we pay t.v. license

Power in Media Industries - Curran And Seaton 

Cultural Industries - David Hesmonhalgh - Vertical Integration

BBC owns smaller companies, such as BBC Radio, News, Weather, Studios, Music, Worldwide, etc

BBC Radio 4

How does this relate to Late Night Women's hour?

^ Refer to the text we looked at: 'Home'

Profit and Power

Digital Radio & the ability to be an independent 

Public Broadcasting

Radio 4 - In the license fee, target audience: older and middle class demographic.

LNWH - 1946 for the original Women's hour, but Late Night Women's hour is a modernised spin off with Lauren Lavernre presenting. LNWH started in 2015, broadcast once a month at around 11pm - time doesn't matter with podcasts as it can be watched anywhere. 

If this is an audience question, Laverne can be brought in as she attracts an audience.

Each episode focuses on a particular theme that is relevant to its female audience. The text we look at is the episode, "Home". 

BBC ethos is Inform, Educate, and Entertain. 

Prides itself on being non-bias and fair in its coverage.

Aims to maintain a 'pluralistic' ideology, which allows it to give a voice to a range of different people and groups, allowing them to be empowered.

One of the biggest and most powerful broadcasters in the U.K. despite being publicly accountable.

The government have some control, but they are regulated by Ofcom, though no higher ups own them and they are more or less free - publicly owned.

Other large broadcasting services in the U.K. itv, channels 4 and 5, Sky, Netflix. These are all examples of conglomerations.

A conglomerate is a corporation that consists of a group of businesses dealing in different products or services, these are often spread out across media industries.

The conglomerates stand alone, a major example of this is Newscorp.

Vertical Integration:

When companies are bought out or merged together across a vertical axis. This means that companies in vertical integration are buying companies that are involved in different stages of the same production cycle, AKA buying producers and distributors for a kind of product, for example.

The BBC is very vertically integrated. They own T.V. channels, radio, online and children's content, BBC Worldwide with distribution, DVDs, Books, CDs, BBC Films etc.

When conglomerates and monopolies are formed, there is a domination of multiple media industries, and the focus becomes even more so on generating profit, conglomerates don't take as many risks with their production, this limits variety, creativity, and stagnates the industries.

"Anti-monopoly media regulation is need not only to maintain fair competition but also to prevent the distortion of democracy." - James Curran and Jean Seaton.

The BBC does challenge the Curran and Seaton theory as the BBC strives to be pluralistic, take creative risks, and produce content without the sole intention of profit.

Public Service Broadcasters produce content without the sole intention of profit. This results in a more varied range of content across multiple media industries. Independent produces contribute to this creativity and variety by proving niche products that often act as the alternative to the mainstream. These socially diverse patterns of ownership support a more diverse and adverterous media landscape.

"Diversity is in the public interest - but modern societies suffer from collective attention deficit disorders (ADD), the public interest has to work harder to be noticed, and we need agile but resourceful media to do that"

It could be argues that Late Night Woman's hour challenges the idea that media is controlled by a small number of companies riven by the logic of profit and power. Whilst the BBC is definitely a large and significant company, the nature of Public Service Broadcasting and the content of the broadcast seem to be at odds with the large conglomerates of the world, that do not take creative risks and cause the industries to stagnate.

Socially diverse patterns of ownership help create conditions for varied and adventurous productions. 

Lauren Laverne and guests discuss home. What does home mean to you? Is domesticity a joy or a drudgery? And why has the Scandinavian art of Hygge become the word of the winter? Is it genius marketing or emotional need?

People on the cast:

Helen Zaltzman - Podcaster and Crafter
Dr Rachel Hurdley - Research Fellow in the School of Social Science at the University of Cardiff
Susie Orbach - Psychotherapist and Author
Trine Hahnemann - Chef and Author

Definitions of the word and debates about it.

Covering a range of diverse topics, people from different backgrounds (all female) are able to provide their different professional knowledge.

High listening level, use of complex lexis and jokes that some people may not get - this lends to its older, more educated target audience.

Empowering the female target audience, through their different occupations etc.

'The meaning of home' could be perhaps stereotypical, as it has an all female cast it connotes to women being housewives and caring about the home, but this is then challenged by discussing the white protestant male origins of the home as a sanctuary idea, and how they personally are not housewives. Talk about subjective 'masculinity' and 'femininity'. Goes on to talking about how this has changed throughout the ages, with the wife at home being connoted with North American Patriotism. 

Laverne keeps everything on track and asks others for their opinions.

Promotes female interest, but this can be part and parcel of targeting a female demographic

The podcast itself is half an hour long, and is quite fluid in terms of transitioning into different topics etc. 

The podcast starts at 11:00PM. Despite being quite late for a podcast, this does not matter too much as the fact that it is a radio broadcast and is available online is a benefit to the large majority of the audience with internet access, as they are available to listen to it online at any time. One possible plus side of this it using digital technology to the producers benefit. This is because at airing at such a late time (Almost like the time someone working a night shift at work - a role traditional reserved for a male - would listen to) most other people would be asleep, and due to this, it will be ready to just watch whenever the next morning, perhaps when they are getting ready due to its length.

Response: 

Who owns this media product? Who owns them? Are they are of a conglomerate and / or vertically integrated?

A conglomerate is a merging of different companies through the use of vertical or horizontal regulation, they are the result of many companies coming together through conglomeration, and they often lead to the creative stagnation of the industry. Vertical integration is the buying up of companies that are involved in the same sector of media industry as another. For example, this could be a producer buying a distribution company. The BBC is a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and also the owners of Late Night Woman's Hour. Late Night Woman's hour, initially launched in 1946 as a women's variety hour with cooking recipes, tips, and homeware guide, the show has since been updated in 2015 to Late Night Woman's Hour, hosted by Lauren Laverne monthly, at 11PM.

Late Night Woman's Hour is owned by the BBC, meaning that LNWH adheres to the different rules and regulations that BBC set upon it. In particular, the BBCs mission statement looks to "Inform, Educate, and Entertain", as well as include plurality in their shows in order to represent their bipartisanism, as well as represent other groups and cultures in a light which may not be seen usually.

The BBC itself is not really owned by anyone, the Government have little say in the running of the BBC (although they do agree on the pricing of the T.V. license, and this is then decided fully in Parliament) The BBC, much like every similar company such as Itv and Sky, follow the regulations of OFCOM. The public pay a Television License Fee, which goes toward the production and upkeep of the BBC. As a direct result of this, the BBC does not run advertisements, and creates its own content. It could be argued that the BBC is a conglomerate, and this calls into question James Curran and Jean Seaton's theory of power and profit within the media industries. The theory states that conglomerates and monopolies are held together by large amounts of generated revenue, and exist solely for the purposes of profit. This then leads to creative stagnation and lack of variety and risks being taken within their productions, as they want to play it safe and keep the mass appeal. On one hand, it could be argued that the BBC is technically a conglomeration, as they make use of vertical integration (As stated in David Hesmondhalgh's theory of cultural industries) in order to buy up companies that are involved in different parts of the production process. BBC owns BBC Worldwide, a worldwide distribution company, and they also own various production companies such as BBC Films and BBC Shows.