Sky and the BBC

In this essay I will explain the structure of the television and video
industry in the UK covering ownership models using the BBC as
examples.
Ownership Model
Sky is a privately owned company while the BBC is publicly owned.
A public company is a company with securities owned and traded by
the general public through the public capital markets, while private
company is not publically traded on a securities exchange, most
companies are privately owned.
Key players
The CEO of the company is Jeremy Darroch, so he would have the
most influence on sky behind Rupert Murdoch. Skys COO is Mike
Darcey, who is also the boss of news international after Tom
Mochridge quit.

The founder of the BBC was founded of John Reith in the year 1922,
today the CEO of the BBC is Tim Davie following the resignation of
George Entwistle on 10 November 2012. The COO of the company is
Alice Webb.

History of company

The BBC was formed on the 18th October 1922; its founder was John
Reith, a Scottish broadcasting executive. Initially it started off as a
private company but soon turned public between the years 19231926. Experimental television broadcasts were started in 1932 using
a n electromechanically 30-line system developed by John Logie
Baird. An expansive service now named the BBC television service
started from Alexandra Palace in 1936, using a electronic system
over the mechanical system used prior. Television broadcasting
however was suspending as a result of the outbreak of the Second
World War until 7th June 1946.
The next few decades saw the increase in channels and radio
stations that were run by the BBC.
I did an 8 paged slide about the history of sky, in this PowerPoint I
go into a lot of detail about the history of Sky.
To see this PowerPoint just follow the link
http://christopheroneill.weebly.com/television-and-videostudies.html
Income generation
Surprisingly, even with the rise of online streaming sites such as
Netflix, BskyB reported a rise in revenue and profits on Thursday
16th October 2014. The company said first quarter sales in the three
months to the end of September increased by 6% to 1.926bn, pretax profits during this period rose by 6%to 417m, while operating
profit increased by 11% to 316m, the introduction of sky go extra,
which enables customers to watch content on mobile devices, along
with the addition of 760,000 paid for subscription products was
reported to be the reason for the rise in profit.
Skys methods of gaining profit is thru subscription fees, these take
up the majority of says revenue, Sky also had advertisements on
both their premium and free view shows, this has been criticized as
sky shouldnt be putting ads onto shows that people have already
paid extra for.

The BBC however is funded primarily through revenue generated by

the Television Licence fee. This is a fee that everybody under the
age of 75 who owns a TV has to pay in order to watch television, this
also includes watching television through a mobile phones,
computers, and game consoles.

The BBC also makes money thru merchandise, DVD sales and tie-in
products, shows such as doctor who have created opportunities for
merchandise and reselling of series on DVD, In the year 2010/11 the
BBC made profits of 1158m worldwide, while the licence fee
revenue was 3560m in the same time period.

Regulations
The office of communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is a
government approves regulatory and authority for the broadcasting,
telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom.
Ofcom has the power to enforce remedies in markets where it
believes dominant operators may have a potentially harmful
influence on competition or consumers. They have had some trouble
with sky in the past.

If you go onto skys website you will find a law and regulations page,
you will get a link to a pdf page entitled Skys ways of working, on
this pdf you will find articles entitled honesty and integrity, in this
article you will find sky talking about how their employees should
conduct themselves and how to avoid conflicts of interests.
The BBC also has webpages dedicated to editorial guidelines along
with the BBCs code of conduct.

Technology
Sky is accessible thru skyboxes; the design of these boxes differs
depending on what type of sky package you plan on getting, since
the increase in popularity in the internet and mobile phones sky
have been made packages. There has been many cases where
people have been able to discover the codes for skys channels and
have been able to sell them illegally.

BBC have also taken advantage of new technologies, you can

download BBC iplayer as a app on your game console and iPhone,
you can also stream it instantly from the internet on your computer
and rewatch all of the series if you missed out on anything, a lot less
people are watching TV to get these channels and have started to
use devices such as computers and smart phones to access TV
shows.
Controversies
There have been various controversies involving the BBC throughout
the decades. The latest controversy would be the coverage of the
Scottish Independence. Nick Robinson, the political editor of the BBC
was accused of broadcasting lies and being biased against the yes
Scotland campaign. Thousands of Scottish nationalists protested

outside of the BBCs Scottish headquarters on September 14 2014.

The BBC was unable to remain neutral.

Other controversies include staff gagging orders in June 2013, in

which the BBC were reported to have spent a total of 28 million on
silencing clauses at the end of staffs contracts. The Jimmy Saville
controversy in which a news night investigation of Jimmy Savilles
alleged abuse was shelved. Accusations of ageism and sexism from
the years 2007-2011, since the BBC is such a major organization
and has been around so long its no wonder that there is so much
criticism and controversy.
Sky also has its fair share of controversy, on July 12th 2011, former
Prime Minister Gordon Brown had claimed that news corporation,
skys majority owner, had attempted to afflict government policy
with regards to the BBC in pursuit of their own commercial interest
i.e. BskyB. As a result of the phone hacking scandal however, and all
of the UK government parties agreeing to block the bid, News
Corporations proposed takeover of sky was dropped on July 13th
2011.

Other controversies involve films and sports, Ofcom asked for the
investigation of sky skys premium pay TV films on 4th august 2010
over the concern over the way these films were sold and distributed,
which created a situation in which sky had the incentive and the
ability to distort competition. In a provisional decision on 19th

august 2011, the competition commission said BskyBs contracts

with 6 major studios presented a significant barrier for entry to
potential competitors, the regulator said that sky should be
restricted when signing exclusive deals with major Hollywood
studios, however this was not passed as the rise of Netflix and love
film had begun to weaken skys dominance.
Sky also has dominance over sports since the collapse of Setanta
sports in 2009. On 31st march 2010, Ofcom ordered BskyB to cut the
price of its premium sports channels and to offer sky sports 1 and 2
to rival operators at 32.4% below its own monthly price per
subscriber, Ofcom said that sky must make their channels available
on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
Audience feedback
Both companies allow feedback from the audience so that they can
improve their product. To quote section 19 of the editorial guidelines
on the BBC website, audience are at the heart of everything the
BBC does. Audience feedback is invaluable to us and helps to
improve programme quality.
Sky also has various ways that they can get feedback, on their
website you can find the contact us page where you can make a
complaint, you can also get in touch with people at sky by simply
calling, they have people who will take calls to help with any issues
you may be having.

Conclusion
Overall these companies have various differences that make them
stand out, however they also are very similar in the way in which
they try and get their shows to an audience thru the se of television

and the internet. The BBC has more controversies, as its been
around for much longer than sky, they are both prime examples of
public and privately owed companies.