Commercial Media is essentially all about MONEY - CASH. DOUGH. THE BIG BUCKS. FINANCE. MOOLA. WEALTH etc. And you can see where I'm going with this.
If it wasn't because media outlets need the money and wanted to make money, commercial media would not be as affluent as it is today. Commercial Media is a PROFIT-DRIVEN media production, as I mentioned earlier. It is NOT government funded and business success is crucial to its survival or failure. Basically, Commercial Media gets its business through "generating audience". How does this work? This is because audience is needed to generate profit through advertisements.
Advertisers pay for advertisements and for Commercial Media outlets to get that profit from advertisers, they have to ensure that they have an audience. After all, which advertiser would want to pay for advertisements on media channels that have very little audience. Thus, Commercial Media relies heavily on audiences.
The BIG ISSUE with Commercial Media is:
"Can Commercial Media deliver on BOTH commercial and social functions?"
Essentially, is it possible for Commercial Media to deliver a social (public trust) function apart from dealing with the profits alone? The Hutchins Commission came up with the social responsibility of the media in a democracy. Based on those responsibilities, is the media able to deliver on a social function if it is so preoccupied with profits all the time? One might argue that we could keep it under control via formal state requirements, legal prescriptions and state oversight. But when the state get involved, no matter what people say, will there be government influence over the materials published and broadcasted? Thus, on top of being manipulated by commercial gains, media might also be used to the government's advantage. In this case, will the people be getting a fair oversight of events and news? Will the public trust in media outlets be shaken?
As what C. P. Scott, the editior/owner of The Guardian says:
"The first duty [of the media] is to shin the temptations of monopoly. Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free, but facts are sacred."
If we look at Commercial Media nowadays, what are we getting, really? Essentially, what we can understand is that the stress is really on profit over quality. The desire to please and generate audience overpowers the desire to present the truth to people. Sensational news over serious news; tabloids are all there is. Commercial Media start to omit the things that are important, serious and dull and instead go for news that are more likely to catch people's attention. There is also the "dumbing down" of news.
"Commercial = corrupt; lack of quality; profit over-rides social responsibility."
- John McManus
This quote summaries this issue pretty well.
Despite this, Commercial Media is facing some pretty tough challenges nowadays, especially with the rise of the Internet. As people start to do advertisement online through the web nowadays, the advertising revenue for media starts to slide. For example, less people are using broadcast media for advertising nowadays. This loss of revenue leads to loss of investments and thus, less money for quality productions. What do people do about that? They start to buy other content (loss of originality) and start having repeats of old sitcoms and an influx of reality tv (which, let's face it people, is pretty much nothing but crap). And the thing is, although this is happening (i.e. in my opinion, shows are getting worse, especially reality programs), people still watch those shows, and that is just, bad.
So how should Commercial Media handle this problem? Here's one way. They should start by having QUALITY CONTENT. By having more and more good quality stuff, people might actually start to pay and enjoy those programs. I mean, even if you can sensationalise news, people are only going to bother about it and after a while, it just dies down. But, if you have a constant flow of good, quality content, people will actually actively source you out and patronise that particular media medium, be it a TV channel or magazine.
And with that, your audience number will increase again and viola! People might actually start paying to have advertisements in your media once more. But that might probably set off a chain reaction and the whole cycle will repeat itself again... So yeah, media outlets should just keep in mind that quality over profit is the way to go (which, is actually easier said than done). But hey, I've got faith. Sorta...
Yet, that's just my opinion. What's yours?
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