Friday, May 28, 2010

WT TV

Rather handy this for applying concepts such as convergence and horizontal integration...[see below for defintions + a 2nd example, using Avatar, which i encourage you to use for the exam!]

Reading The Guardian the other day - which I encourage you all to do, especially the Media (Mondays, or any day on the web!) and Film (Fridays, or..) supplements - I came across the news that Working Title TV is now up and running!


The above is a preview of WT TV's first networked show, Love Bites (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM0DcYAdwv4)

You can find WT's press release on WT TV here; how The Guardian covered it; TVSquad.com discuss WT films that would make interesting movies; Collider.com's report; IMDB entry; wiki on Love Bites; Poptower on it; monsterandcritics.com's take; and the entirely unrelated video for Sheffield rockers Def Leppard's classic ballad Love Bites just in case you need a wee break from all this!



SOME DEFINITIONS
Convergence: the idea that the barriers between the once distinct media are collapsing because of digitization, new media, web 2.0 (20 years ago a newspaper was simply a paper - today they're websites, and effectively radio + Tv through their podcasts and video content)
Horizontal integration: where conglomerates use their subsidiaries to cross-promote and make money from one part of the company. A good example is Murdoch's News Corporation: it owns Twentieth Century Fox which produced Avatar; Sky One got privileged access to stars and clips, as did The S*n, which enabled these two to promote the movie while also attracting an audience for themselves
(Vertical integration is where a film company is able to control all three elements of the film cycle: production, distribution, exhibition - so this also works for Murdoch's News Corp + Avatar)

This is how the always entertaining - but hugely informative - Media Monkey covered this story:
So how many times can the Sun find pretexts for mentioning James Cameron's movie Avatar in its news pages? Answer: quite a few. "Rugby in a 3D first ... 3D fever, begun by film Avatar", "3D set to go seedy ... adult film makers have jumped on the Avatar bandwagon", "District 9 review: James Cameron's £300m breathtaking Avatar is currently taking cinemas by storm ...", "Ava-Ta Very Much ... The huge success of 3D blockbuster Avatar is helping Cineworld to battle the recession" and so on. The Sun is owned by News International, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation which also owns Twentieth Century Fox, which made ... Avatar.

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