Focus: Lecture - Commercial Media

The topic for this week's lecture is commercial media. Well, as I came here from Hong Kong for the first day, I have already noticed difference between Hong Kong and Australia. The varieties of televisions, newspaper and radio channels are completely refreshing to me. For the first few weeks I have totally no idea on what time does the news starts, and what other interesting "content" does all those TV channels have. That took me quite a time to adjust and understand.

Australian media in a glimpse - Both commercial and public media

But in this lecture, I think our main focus is not about comparing which TV show is better, or which channel has more viewers. As a journalism student, we need to know the landscape of Australian media, no matter it be commercial or public. As well as the purpose of commercial media: why do they exist?

To me, the first thing I found in Aussie TV channels are huge promotions of whatever kind of products sold in supermarkets and department stores. They are, obviously, advertisements. Commercial media needs profits to maintain their day-to-day operation. That means they rely on advertisements to generate revenue. The revenue will be used to produce TV programmes, buying dramas, and all sorts of things we see on the TV screen. However, their business success is based on their credibility. If there is a chance that a commercial media did something wrong and their action was discovered by the viewers, they will quickly lose audience, and soon their business will flail.

Oh, don't forget other forms of media such as newspaper and radio. They are also important parts of the media landscape in Australia, as well as magazines, websites, sports news, etc. But for me, the interesting thing about these corporations is, they do literally everything: TV, radio, digital media publishing, tele-broadcasting... you name it. They can cover almost all kinds of media available for consumers in a single umbrella company. It's really fascinating to understand all the linkages made between one magazine and a broadcasting company.

So in brief, the main players in the industry are: 

• News Limited (Courier Mail, The Daily Telegraph etc.)
• Fairfax Media (Brisbane Times, The Sydney Morning Herald etc.)
• Nine Entertainment (Channel nine, major magazines, Ticketek etc.)
• WIN corporation (regional broadcasting, including TV and radio)
• Southern Cross Broadcasting (Free-to-air TV and radio)
• Seven West Media (Channel 7, The West Australian, Yahoo!7 etc.)
• Ten (Channel Ten, ONE, 11)

Apparently, I knew too little about all of these connection in companies, and this week's lecture has shown us so much about it. Looks like one day if I have a job in a newspaper company, that means I am also work for certain different company as well, or two, or even 3. Now, how cool is that?

D.