As we discovered in the lecture, commercial media is a proft-driven media production which exists so that, according to Dr. Bruce Redman, advertisers can "get to the eyes and ears of the viewer". A risky business, its survival depends solely on business success generated through its selling of advertising to the audience. Thus, commercial media is driven by this audience and the quality of its ratings.
The major players in the Australian commercial media arena are News Limited, Fairfax Media, APN news and media, Nine entertainment company, WIN corporation, Southern Cross Broadcasting, Seven West Media, and the Ten network holdings.
We learnt that their production varies within the commercial realm. News Limited produces newspapers, cable TV, film, magazines, books and sports such as The Australian, Foxtel, 20th Century Fox, Harper Collins Publishers and NRL coverage. Fairfax produces chiefly newspapers and digital media such as The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, domain.com.au and RSVP. APN generates regional newspapers, digital media, radio and outdoor advertising such as The Gympie Times, finda, 97.3FM and Adshel. Nine entertainment co. are obviously associated with free to air tv, but also magazines, digital media and events like Channel 9, GO, Women's Weekly, ninemsn and ticketek. WIN is interested in free to air TV, radio, sport and tele-comms such as WIN television, i98FM, St. George Illawarra football team and TPG, whereas Southern Cross is only concerned with free to air TV and radio like Southern Cross Ten and b105 (105.3FM). Seven West Media has its interests vested in free to air TV, newspapers, magazines and digital media such as 7 and its associated channels, Sky News, Who and Yahoo 7. Finally, Ten is more focussed in its commercial interests, only producing free to air TV like ten, one HD and 11.
The more minor players in the commercial media field are Telstra, Optus, Macquarie and Austar.
Commercial media's form is obviously commercial, fuelled by subscription (eg. foxtel), sponsored (eg. channel nina) and subsidised (government) dollars. Its function is threefold - commercial, propaganda and social.
The Hutchins Commission of 1947 established that the social responsibility of the media in a democracy was to be:
1. a truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day's events in a context which gives them meaning;
2. a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism;
3. the projection of a representative picture of the constituent groups in the society;
4. the presentation and clarification of the goals and values of the society;
5. full access to the day's intelligence
Despite this, it is still queried whether or not commercial media can deliver on both commercial and social functions. I believe this is a very appropriate question to be asked in today's society where money is so frequently the primary concern. Like anything else which impinges on the goings on of everyday life, commercial media is controlled by formal state requirements, legal prescription and state oversight.
In order to guarantee these commercial-social functions, there exists something known as "the public sphere" (Jurgen Habermas), which is a space between commerce and government where people can debate freely and form public opinion.
The style of commercial media proves to produce quite negative results. John McManus explains it as being "corrupt" and "lack[ing] quality". Not only this, but he sees it to be something where "profit over-rides social responsibility". Professor Michael Bromley sees the sheer commercialisation of this form of media to be "at the expense of their social function" which is "a zero-sum game". The style lends itself to a universal 'dumbing-down' of news and information as well as tabloidisation, the 'desire to please' and 'mickey mouse' news.
There are numerous challenges associated with commercial media these days. Firstly, advertising revenue is down and continues to go down. A loss of revenue leads to a loss of investment which leads to less money for quality production and finally more bought-in, unoriginal content as well as sitcom repeats. On the Internet the evidence is in the number of 'clicks' that each story attracts. This reveals that the popularity of tabloids and the superficial trumps hard-hitting news. Despite this, there are business solutions such as an increase in quality, greater competition and a move to digital by enforcing paywalls or the like.
The future of commercial media can be seen alternatively in relation to corporate media dominance vs. an expanded public sphere, government interference or a new business plan like that of The Global Mail which almost heroically proclaims, "our audience is our only agenda".
A heavily content-based lecture, it is interesting to reflect afterwards on the immense commercialisation of broadcasting in the Australian media landscape. The decrease in news quality in favour of money, through superficial tabloid stories, says an awful lot about the similarly diminishing values of our privileged society. Considering the fact that we are so incredibly immersed in commercial media on a daily basis, it is worrying to know that its content is frivolous at best. Triviality is a primary issue in relation to commercial media quality. I think it is important that my generation reconsiders the focus of Australian media's efforts.
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