Matakuliah : O0394 – Teknik Reportase dan News Caster
Tahun
: 2010
Who Runs The Show
Pertemuan 19 – 20
Learning Objectives
This section is aimed at understanding all components that
assist the television running the show. The aimed at studying
this material is for the students to understand all the aspects
that influence the sustainability of a television program,
including the new program.
The discussion will focus on 3 (three) components: (1) The
Investors, (2) The Content Creation, (3) Local Television
Distribution.
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The Investors/Conglomerates
Who are They?
 Television industry includes the individual
entrepreneurs or companies, both big and small,
who own or are investing in television properties.
 These individual entrepreneurs or companies are
called Investors or Owners since they provide
financial support for television station.
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The Investors/Conglomerates
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The Investors/Conglomerates
What do They Do?
 Until now, there are 5 (five) conglomerates who
dominate the television industry: AOL, Time Warner,
Disney, Viacom, News Corp, and General Electric;
 Those conglomerates not only produce news programs
but they also combine the video production, national
and local distribution and other media properties under
one single name.
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The Investors/Conglomerates
 The integrated production, also called synergy, is
considered getting more benefits than only producing a
single program;
For example: by ordering a news program show from
their production companies, the conglomerates would
save production cost and profit directly from subsequent
off-network syndication.
 They also cross-promote the programs released by their
holdings;
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The Investors/Conglomerates
For example: CBS promote its youth-oriented shows on MTV
that both are part of Viacom.
In Indonesia, SCTV promote its music program to O Channel
and both are part of Surya Citra Televisi management.
The competition among conglomerates in producing and
distributing their program is so tight that they must really
possess their own competitive competency in it.
For example: Sony that has interest in music (Sony Records)
lacks television and cable networks.
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The Investors/Conglomerates
The Media Flamboyant
 The most well-known media baron in the world is Rupert
Murdoch, who initially built a newspaper empire in Australia –
specializing in tabloids. He was the architect of media synergy
system who was the first to take the bold step of buying a film
studio to help launch a new television network.
He also envisioned a worldwide media empire where film
studios, television, newspapers, and online ventures help
each other.
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The Investors/Conglomerates
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Content Creation
What is Behind the Content
Each television program is produced according to genre and
each of them reflects a slightly different economic model.
What are the programs and how the programs operated.
 Entertainment
A production company hire personnel (directors, actors,
and technicians) to produce television entertainment
programs.
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Content Creation
The profit of making the program comes from the selling of
rights to off-network syndication. However, with the abolition
of Fin-Syn rules in 1993 and the recent merger craze, most
network entertainment programs are now produced in house
or co-owned by the networks.
 Network News
News programs are considered having no value in syndication
so their producers have to make all the money during their
first run.
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Content Creation
 Local News
Local news is a major profit center so that most
stations would run up to two hours per day for this
program.
The profit of local news derives from its popularity
among local audiences and local advertisers. The
profits are also followed with considerably low
production cost.
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Content Creation
 Sports
The networks also maintain their profitable sports division
who provide announcers, equipment, and staff for
broadcasters of sporting events;
 Public Television
Most PBS stations produced their own PBS programs. The
CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) fund the PBS
programming with the money obtained from the taxpayers;
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Content Creation
Producers depend on sources of funding from CPB, PBS
member stations contributions, corporate underwriting, public
contributions, and foreign network co-sponsorship.
Another type of source of funding is obtained from
underwriting credit, which is a corporate financial support of
public television programs in return for a mention of the donor
on the air. A program dedicated to appreciate the donors who
contributed the money to Public TV. This program is
considered not of commercial value.
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Content Creation
 Cable Production
National cable networks follow the same content
acquisition strategies as the national broadcast networks,
but local production is rather limited. Many cable systems
produce their own local origination programming.
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Local Television Distribution
What is It?
It is the right of a television station to hold a federal license to
create or organize programs for a specific community and
transmit them on their assigned channel. Local television
distribution may be categorized according to their ownership
arrangements and relationship to national networks.
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Local Television Distribution
 Group-Owned Stations
The operations of many television stations are supported
by companies with multiple broadcast properties, called
group owners. The group benefit from economies of scale
in management, programming, and advertising sales.
To prevent monopolization, the number of stations one
group could own is limited.
The FCC allows duopoly, the ownership of two stations in
the same market.
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Local Television Distribution

Network Affiliates
TV networks own their local outlets. Networks affiliation is more
desirable because of the ratings draw of network prime-time
shows. Local stations profit from the sale of local ad spots that
run during network programs.
Network affiliation has been especially profitable over the years
because they maintain the loyalty of affiliates in making
programs and encourage the affiliates to carry network
programs without preemption, a practice called affiliate
compensation.
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Local Television Distribution
 Down at Local Station
Local stations vary in size from a couple of dozen to several
hundred employees, as a function of the size of the markets
they serve. Local commercial television stations are
supported by personnel who organized around the basic
tasks of obtaining and transmitting programs that will attract
audiences and, surely, advertisers.
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Local Television Distribution
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Local Television Distribution
 Independent Stations
This stations are not affiliated with any network.
Independents buy most of their programming from
syndication services and sell their advertising in local,
regional, and national markets. Their programs are more
segmented and therefore not much of the independent
stations survive by now.
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Closing
By understanding the broadcasting industry from another one
of its economic aspects, it is expected that the students will
have better understanding on the system of running a
television production or a television program.
It is important to understand this material because the
competition among television industries are becoming even
more tight and that it will force all components in it to master
the skill of managing the cash flow during production process.
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