Showing posts with label Media Industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media Industry. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

An Overview of the Media(TV) Industry- Global and local Perspective- By Sheeraz Adil

Global Media Giants


Time Warner is the largest media group of the world. This media giant has great names under its belt including CNN, Cartoon Network and HBO. It also has the world largest cinema screens. It also owns largest cable network in the US. It also possesses one of the best studio and production facilities. It also has ownership in comedy central. It is no doubt a global company having more than 200 subsidiaries worldwide. This media giant also runs major theme parks and it also has 150 retail outlets. The world’s famous Sports Illustrated and Time Magazines are also a part of Time Warner.



Disney
Disney is the closest competitor of Time Warner. They shifted their strategy and business model from only theme parks to film production, broadcasting and merchandising. They have now more income from broadcasting as compared to theme parks. Disney Channel has created waves in the home entertainment industry. With their acquisition of ESPN, Disney owns two great channels. Disney is very much active in the toy manufacturing and has an exclusive global marketing deal with McDonalds. Disney also owns world’s most famous theme parks; in addition to this they have several music labels. It also has more than 500 retail outlets worldwide.


Bertelsmann
Bertelsmann is the top media company of Europe. It owns few top channels of Germany. Their major income is through the printing and publishing as they own more than 100 magazines. The company also owns more than 15 radio stations in Europe.


Viacom
Viacom is also one of the leading media companies of the world. Its television channel MTV and Nickelodeon has made this company extremely powerful. It also acquired paramount and own theme parks and leading video rental store. It now has more than 15 channels influencing the global viewers.


News Corporation
Fox, Sky, Channel V and Twentieth Century Fox are the names that are a part of News Corporation. All these names have created deep impressions in their genres. It started off with in Australia but expanded in US and later globally. More than 100 newspapers and about 20 magazines are also a part of News Corporation.

Sony
Sony is also one of the leading media companies and has produced many successful music records movies. It acquired Columbia pictures making them the leading entertainment producer of the world. They are also focused in producing video games which differentiates them from other media companies.


History of Electronic Media in Pakistan
National Television-PTV
Usually in every country history of Television starts with the state owned TV channel. In the similar fashion Pakistan Television was launched in 1964. There are 6 channels that are a part of PTVs family. Even after the launch of satellite transmission and the private channels, the reach of PTV is still the most amongst Pakistani viewers due to its territorial coverage.


STN
The electronic media remained under the influence of the government until 1990, and then the first even private television network Network Television Marketing (NTM) was launched by Shalimar Television Network (STN). NTM quickly increased its viewership and became the integral part of the lives of the viewers. Late due to some corruption and financial issues it was closed down and after sometime was re-launched as ATV.

Local Media Giants

ARY
ARY network includes news, entertainment, Islamic, music and cooking channels. The group is not directly related to print but it in the media industry since a long time. It is considered as the first private television network in the new era of private channels regime. The ARY network also manages HBO and Nick in Pakistan.

Jang Group
Jang group needs no introduction, it is owned by Mir Shakil ur Rehman. The major publication of the group is Jung newspaper and The News. Jang newspaper is the highest circulated newspaper of the country. The website of Jang group has most of the times, the highest hits amongst any Pakistani website. It has other print publications including various magazines as well. In 2002 Geo TV was launched which had the content of news, infotainment and entertainment. Later the news channel was separately launched and now the network consists of sports, music and also other international beams.

Dawn- herald
Herald is one of the largest publication companies of the country. The English News Paper Dawn was launched by the founder of the nation and it is the most circulated English newspaper of the country. It also launched an English news channel which was later converted to Urdu channel.




Hum TV is one of the leading entertainment channels is a part of Eye Entertainment. Famous of its dramas Hum TV is the favorite channels of many women of the county. The group also owns a lifestyle channel “style 360” and a music channel “oye”.


Express-Television Media Network
Lakson group has also become a media giant whose major publication is the Express newspaper which has made an impact in a short span of time. Lakson has now two news channels one in Urdu and the other one is English. They also plan to launch an entertainment and music channel.

Interflow Group
Mr. Tahir Ali Khan is the owner of interflow group. Mr. Tahir has been in the advertising industry since a long time. He also played an important role in the first ever private channel of Pakistan, later he with draw his partnership from NTM. Now the group owns two channels one is news channel News 1 and the other one is entertainment known as TV 1.

Rise of Private Channels
In 2002 during the Musharraf regime private channels were given licenses to broadcast the transmission from Pakistan. Therefore it was during that period when the monopoly of the state owned TV channel was challenged. In the initial period the uplink licenses were not issued therefore transmission of private channels were uplinked from outside Pakistan, most of the private channels in this period were operating from UAE, UK and Thailand. Later the permission of uplink was granted and the channels started their transmission in Pakistan.
Private investors most of them who were already associated with the print or any other form of media found this business of TV channels very lucrative and obtained licenses. Since then the media industry in Pakistan is on a high. They are many news, entertainment, music and sports channels which are operated and controlled from Pakistan. The rise of private channels has also created waves in the advertising industry of Pakistan and it has grown immensely.

Licensing Authority

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority is responsible for facilitating and regulating the establishment and operation of all broadcast media and distribution services in Pakistan established for the purpose of international, national, provincial, district, and local or special target audiences.


All broadcast mediums come under the PEMRA therefore all TV channels and radio stations have to get the license from this authority and abide by the rules and regulations. Pemra has different set of restrictions for different types of channels. There is a general code of conduct which is valid of all the TV channels of Pakistan. Besides that Pemra can take actions against any TV channel. Pemra also wants to promote Pakistan and Pakistanis therefore there is a certain restriction for Pakistani channels to show the foreign content.
There are 87 licenses granted to Pakistani TV channels however 5 have been cancelled by the authority. There still remain more than 80 channels and it shows that the market is competitive.




If a channel is uplinked from abroad and wants to distribute its content in Pakistan then it has to acquire landing rights permission from Pemra. Foreign channels like Ten sports, star sports and others are few which fall under this category.




All channels that want to uplink and run their transmission from Pakistan have to obtain the license from Pemra. The channel can broadcast anywhere in the world depending on the respective satellite coverage.




The revenue model of the TV channels consists of the following:

Government funded:
Owned and sponsored by government of a country. All the matters in this form of model are the responsibility of the government of the country. It is also called state television.


Advertising:
Most private channels run TV commercials as their source of revenue. They sell the air time to different companies who want to broadcast their product information to the viewers. The more the viewership of the channel, the higher are the rates of air time. Channels work hard to increase their viewership; this includes hiring the skilled HR who can use their experience and skills to produce the content that is liked by the audience. Once the viewership/TRP increases every company wants to promote its products on the channels that is most watched and once this happens the rate of the air time increases thus creating more revenue for a TV channel.


Licensing/Taxation:
There is a fixed fee from the viewers that is a part of the utility bills. BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) has the same model. A fix amount is charged as a utility from all the citizens and it is used to run the channel. This is workable for the state television. In this model the channel doesn’t rely on the revenue from advertisements.



Subscription/Pay TV:
The viewer’s subscription commonly known as pay TV is also a model in which TV channels charge a fee from the viewers it is subscribed to. It is applicable in DTH (direct to home) where the viewers can pay and select the channels that want to watch.


Combination of the above:
There can be a combination of the above models. For example, the state television might run commercials as well or a pay TV also sells airtime for commercials thus creating different sources of revenue.

How Television influence our lives
Television has become an integral part of the life. All forms of media create influence on the audience but TV is one of the most successful forms of media. Whatever is seen on the screen resides in the mind of the viewers, whether it is news, entertainment or even commercials, all have a great influence on our lives. It will be difficult to find someone who doesn’t watch TV. People tune in to different channels to watch their favorite program. Based on the target segmentation, TV channels broadcast different types of programs fulfilling the needs of different type of viewers. Children would want to watch stories and cartoons where as women would want to watch cooking program so based on that the content is created.
TV is also one of the biggest medium for marketing. Companies advertise heavily on TV channels to promote their products and strive harder to build their brand image. These promotional campaigns influence the decision makers in buying the products.


Categories of TV Channels
Generally following broad categories exist in TV channels



News
The channel that gives the information about local, regional, national or international events can be termed as a News Channel. This can also be termed as an infotainment channel. In the early days of TV channel there was a specific time when news bulletin was broadcasted having the coverage of important events that happened on that particular date. Today it has changed we have various local and international channels running 24 x 7 giving each and every small or big event that is happening around us.
In Pakistan, the bulletin from the state television was broadcasted at 9 pm and viewers used to wait anxiously now the scenario has changed, there are private news channel that devote all their energies to cover different events and keep the viewers updated all the time.


Sports
Every viewer wants to watch their country’s sports team competing against other teams. Earlier the normal transmission of a TV channel was interrupted when there was an important sports event happening in the world. Today there are specific sports channel that cover international and local sports events. The launch of sports channels has created great opportunities for the audience as well as the marketers.



Entertainment and Life Style
These lifestyle and entertainment channels broadcast the programs which are related to different lifestyle circumstances. Heavy investment is done in production including good looking presenters, sets and locations. Dramas, reality shows, celebrity lifestyles all fall under this category.


Cartoon
Now a days cartoon channels have been very influential. Kids of all age are fond of watching cartoon. This category has seen a significant growth. Many advertisers want to promote their products as kids play an important role in decision making to buy any product.



Science and Discovery
Everyone who watches TV knows about National Geographic and Discovery channels. These channels present documentaries, programs on latest innovations and other useful information.



This article is written and compiled by Sheeraz Adil who is working as Manager Broadcast Operations at Geo TV Network and can be contacted at sheerazadil@gmail.com

Friday, June 18, 2010

An Ideal Automation Workflow In TV Channels

This article will give a brief explanation as how automation works and what exactly is the role of automation in the TV channels’ industry. Play out automation, media asset management, program scheduling, digital archiving, news room systems and news automation are themselves very wide terms and detailed articles can be written on each of them. Once completing this article I will definitely try to write something on the mentioned topics. However this article will talk about the basic workflow and the role of integration that automation plays in enhancing the workflow which can eventually save costly time and dollars.

Rapid advances have resulted in more frequent introduction of automated systems in all segments of the broadcast; from Ingest to Production and Play-out and from management to operations processes. The broadcast industry is now revolving around the automated systems where the automation companies emphasize to provide more and more features to stream line all the activities of a TV channel.

The channels are investing in acquiring the latest technology, even in Pakistan the competition amongst the channels is forcing stakeholders think that technology can play a major role in smooth operations, increasing the viewership and even in generating the revenues.

A full featured Automation system deployment is the one which manages all processes and controls all equipment for Ingest, Media management, Play out and Archiving; managing frame by frame, every piece of video material from Intake to Broadcasting to Archiving and Billing . With the passage of time and as the technology progresses it is not impossible to say that the media buying agency can book the commercials by sitting in their office which will reflect to the play list of the TV channels.

Coming back to the existing workflows, all the content including programs, commercials, shows etc. should first be centrally ingested after arriving to the TV station. Media asset management is responsible for creating a unique asset ID to which the related media will be attached. The ideal scenario is to ingest the content within the archive department where the related Meta data could be entered in the digital asset management system. The content after digitizing and logging in to the asset management should then be processed further. As soon as the digitization takes place the low-resolution of the assets are being created.

After the digitization the content should then be processed. If the content is in the form of program or commercial, the first process that it should pass through is the Quality Control. An automation system can intimate the concerned QC staff that a fresh content is ingested and needs to be checked. Once the QC is done, the automation system can then forward the same request to the censor or for other management approvals and that will be available for previewing the low res version of the content thus saving the network bandwidth. Once that step is done it will be ready to be scheduled. The program scheduling department will be informed that the relevant checks have been approved and now the content is ready for the transmission. It can now be placed in the cue sheet using the traffic system which will obviously be integrated with the automation and hence the media management.

The program scheduling department is usually responsible for making the cue sheet. All the content having the initial unique IDs which has passed through different checks is accessible to the Program Schedule Department and the entire asset IDs with their current status are visible in the traffic system.

They can place them in the daily schedule and the relevant content is then transferred automatically to the isolated on air server. Once after the content is played on air the as run logs are developed which are compared with the cue sheet and deviation report is generated. Again all these processes take place automatically. The reports can then be generated and send to the media buying agency.

So far we have talked about the non-live primary events. The live events can also be scheduled in the cue sheet and as the automation system can control the router and master control switcher therefore live events are as normal as the non-live for all those TV channels which have reliable automation systems. The as-run logs of the non-live events can also be generated easily through the automation.

Now let’s talk something about the secondary events which have now a very significant role in the channel presentation and are a great source of revenue. The secondary events can also be scheduled and as the automation can control the Character Generator so the secondary events can be accurately controlled. This is once again relevant to mention that good automation should keep a track and as run logs of all the secondary events.

So by this point of time I think I have given a very brief explanation on automation and its integration. In the next articles I will try to elaborate some more specific topics which are directly or indirectly related to this topic.

In the end I would like to take this opportunity to thank BESPAK which has provided the platform to all the broadcast engineers to unite and get together to promote not only the broadcast engineering in Pakistan but also help the young engineers to decide their career path by taking guidance from the experienced professionals in the industry. Initiative taken by the founders of BESPAK will certainly create history. I wish BESPAK all the best and hope that this society will prove to be the best in the country.

This article is written by Syed Sheeraz Adil who is working as Manager Automation in Geo TV and can be contacted on sheerazadil@gmail.com