News Corporation

Unit Outline
 1. History of News Corporation (20th century fox)
 2. Media ownership in contemporary media practice
 3. Cross media convergence/synergy in production,
distribution and marketing
 4. Technology used in production, distribution and
marketing
 5. Targeting national and local 'British' audiences by News
Corp’s global network of media operations
 6. Audiences own experiences of media consumption of
Warner’s products
 7. Mock examination

 Q: How did 20th Century Fox target a British Audience

through the promotional campaign behind ‘AVATAR’
(2009)?
 1. History of News Corporation
(20th Century Fox)

 Subsidiary of News Corporation

 Industry Film
 Founded May 31, 1935 (31/05/35), by
merger of Fox Films (founded in 1915)
and 20th Century Pictures, Inc.
(founded in 1933)
 20th Century Fox's most popular
film franchises include Avatar,
The Simpson's, Star Wars, Ice Age, Garfield
, Alvin and the Chipmunks, X-Men, Die Hard
, Alien, Speed, Revenge of the Nerds,
Planet of the Apes, Home Alone,
Dr. Do-little, Night at the Museum, Predator
, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and
The Chronicles of Narnia
 A potted history
 20th Century Fox
 With financial stability came new owners, and in 1978 control
passed to the investors Marc Rich and Marvin Davis.
 By 1985 Rich has fled the US on tax evasion. Davis sold Rich's half
of Fox to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Six months later
Davis sold his half of Fox, giving News Corp complete control. To
run the studio, Murdoch hired Barry Diller from Paramount. Diller
brought with him a plan which Paramount's board had refused: a
studio-backed, fourth television network that was financed by
advertising.
 1986 the new Fox Broadcasting Company took to the air. Over the
next 20-odd years the network and owned-stations group expanded
to become extremely profitable for News Corp.
 In 2008 Fox announced an Asian subsidiary, Fox STAR Studios, a
joint venture with STAR TV, also owned by News Corporation. It
was reported that Fox STAR would start by producing films for the
Bollywood market, then expand to several Asian markets
 News Corp ownership
 Founded in Australia in 1979 by
Rupert Murdoch who owned a vast
number of Australia's newspapers
 Rupert wanted global expansion
into other mediums such as
TV,Film,Cable,Satellite TV,
Magazines etc and own other
significant and iconic newspapers
such as ‘The Times’ to add to his
expanding portfolio
 Rupert Murdoch is chairman and
CEO and he likes to have various
members of his family involved in
his media empire, hence the CEO of
News Corp in Europe & Asia is his
son James Murdoch
 Conglomerates
 What is a conglomerate? A conglomerate is a
combination of two or more corporations engaged in
entirely different businesses together into one corporate
structure, usually involving several (or many)
subsidiaries. Often, a conglomerate is a multi-industry
company. Conglomerates are often large and
multinational (across countries)
 News Corp is the 3rd biggest media
conglomerate in the world?
 Which company is number 1 & 2?
 Finances

 Revenue: $30.423 billion (2009) -

($30,000,000,000)
 Total assets: $53.121 billion (2009)
 Employees: 64,000 (2008)
2. Media ownership in contemporary media practice
2. MEDIA OWNERSHIP IN CONTEMPORARY MEDIA
PRACTICE

 News Corp own a great range of cross

media institutions. They own various
institutions that cover a whole range of
mediums from Film, TV, Cable, Satellite,
Print and the internet.
 List the most significant media
corporations which come under the
ownership of News Corp from the next
slide?
2. Media ownership in contemporary media practice
 http://www.suttonmedia2.blogspot.com/

 An introduction to News Corporation

 Watch and analyse the promotional video (which is in
run on a loop at the entrance of News Corporation) -
What do you learn about the Corporations Media
interests in Film? Web? Print? industries??

 Can you name any TV shows News Corp has been

responsible for?
Can you name any Films News Corp has been
responsible for?
Can you name any Newspapers that belong to News
Corp?
Homework: Go onto the News Corp website and list the many products
they make through their various companies
2. Media ownership in contemporary media practice
5. Targeting national and local 'British' audiences by News Corp’s
global network of media operations

“Ofcom to review News Corp bid for Sky”

The Guardian
 The business secretary Vince Cable has asked Ofcom (the media
watchdog) to look into the impact News Corp’s proposal to take
over BSkyB Television.
 Currently News Corp has 39% shares in the company buy wants to
buy the remaining 61% of shares to take complete ownership
 Rupert Murdoch already owns 37% of all the uk newspapers
including The Sun, The News of the World, The Times and The
Sunday Times
 There is a law that prevents certain mergers and takeovers taking
place on the grounds it could eliminate competition and become
biased in its coverage
 The worry is that Rupert Murdoch will have too much power and
influence over key media which could bias his coverage
 Partisan News = Fox News
 If he owns all the key newspapers and Sky news he could enforce his
own political ideologies like he has done with Fox News which is partisan
towards the Republican party and is highly biased in its adoration for the
republicans, the criticism is that it is un-democratic and UK TV coverage
has to be legally unbiased and independent of political and business
influence

 The BBC are also nervous of Murdoch having more media power
 BSkyB is the biggest broadcaster in the UK. It’s revenue in the UK was
$5.9 billion in 12 months compared with BBC’s global revenues of $4.8
billion
 British Sky Broadcasting was formed in 1990 by the News Corp’s Sky
Television and rival British Satellite Broadcasting
 3. Cross media convergence/synergy in production,
distribution and marketing

 Avatar premiered in London on December 10, 2009, and was

released overseas on December 16 and in the United States to
critical acclaim and commercial success.
 The film broke several box office records during its release and
became the highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S. and Canada
and also worldwide, surpassing Titanic, which had held the records
for the previous 12 years. It also became the first film to gross more
than $2 billion.
 Avatar was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including
Best Picture and Best Director, and won three, for
Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and Best Art Direction.
The film's home release went on to break opening sales records and
became the top-selling Blu-ray of all time. Following the film's
success, Cameron signed with 20th Century Fox to produce two
sequels, making Avatar the first of a planned trilogy.
 3. Cross media convergence/synergy in production

distribution and marketing : Action figures

Mattel Toys announced in December 2009 that it would be introducing a

line of Avatar action figures. Each action figure will be made with a 3-D web
tag, called an i-TAG, that consumers can scan using a web cam, revealing
unique on-screen content that is special to each specific action figure.

 A series of toys representing six different characters from the film were also
distributed in McDonald's Happy Meals in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China,
Colombia, the United States and Venezuela.
 Convergence/synergy in production, distribution and
marketing: Books

 Avatar: A Confidential Report on

the Biological and Social History of
Pandora, a 224-page book in the
form of a field guide to the film's
fictional setting of the planet of
Pandora, was released by
Harper Entertainment on
November 24, 2009. It is
presented as a compilation of data
collected by the humans about
Pandora and the life on it, written
by Maria Wilhelm and Dirk
Mathison.
 Harper Festival also released
Wilhelm's 48-page James
Cameron's Avatar: The Reusable
Scrapbook for children.
3. Cross media convergence/synergy in production,
distribution and marketing: Video Games

 James Cameron's Avatar: The Game

 Cameron chose Ubisoft Montreal to
create an Avatar game for the film in
2007. The filmmakers and game
developers collaborated heavily, and
Cameron decided to include some of
Ubisoft's vehicle and creature
designs into the film.
 James Cameron's Avatar: The Game
was released on December 1, 2009,
for most home video game consoles
(PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS,
iPhone), Microsoft Windows and
December 8 for PSP.

 See GAME documentary - blog

 4. TECHNOLOGY USED IN PRODUCTION,
DISTRIBUTION & MARKETING
 Promotions (marketing)
 The first photo of the film was released on August 14, 2009, and Empire magazine released
exclusive images from the film in its October issue.

James Cameron announced at the Comic-Con Avatar Panel that August 21 will be 'Avatar Day'. On
this day the trailer for the film was released in all theatrical formats. The official game trailer and toy
line of the film were also unveiled on this day.
 The 129-second trailer was released online on August 20, 2009.
 The new 210-second trailer was premiered in theatres on October 23, 2009, then soon after
premiered online on Yahoo! on October 29, 2009, to positive reviews. An extended version in
IMAX 3D received overwhelmingly positive reviews.
 .
 Trailers – Fox exclusive
 The Hollywood Reporter said that audience
expectations were coloured by "the [same]
establishment skepticism that preceded
Titanic" and suggested the showing
reflected the desire for original storytelling.
 The teaser has been among the most
viewed trailers in the history of film
marketing, reaching the first place of all
trailers viewed on Apple.com with 4 million
views.
 The three-and-a-half-minute trailer of the
film premiered live on November 1, 2009,
during a Dallas Cowboys football game at
Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas on the
Diamond Vision screen, the world's largest
video display, and to TV audiences viewing
the game on Fox. It is said to be the largest
live motion picture trailer viewing in history.
 Marketing and Promotion
 The Coca-Cola Company collaborated
with Twentieth Century Fox to launch a
worldwide marketing campaign to
promote the film. The highlight of the
campaign was the website AVTR.com.
Specially marked bottles and cans of
Coca-Cola Zero, when held in front of a
webcam, enabled users to interact with
the website's 3-D features using
augmented reality (AR) technology.
 The film was heavily promoted in an
episode of the Fox Network series
Bones in the episode "The Gamer In
The Grease" (Season 5, Episode 9).
Avatar star Joel David Moore has a
recurring role on the program, and is
seen in the episode anxiously awaiting
the release of the film.
Coco-cola zero promo
 Company links
 From your notes list the companies
associated with the marketing and
promotion of ‘Avatar’ thus far?
 4. TECHNOLOGY USED IN PRODUCTION,
DISTRIBUTION & MARKETING
(Production)

 Avatar – 3D
 Avatar was officially budgeted at $237 million.
Other estimates put the cost between
$280 million and $310 million for production and
at $150 million for promotion. The film was
released for traditional 2-D viewing, 3-D viewing
(using the RealD 3D, Dolby 3D, XpanD 3D, and
IMAX 3D formats), and "4-D" viewing. The
stereoscopic filmmaking was touted as a
breakthrough in cinematic technology.
 Box office success
 Avatar earned $3,537,000 from midnight screenings
domestically (United States and Canada), with the
initial 3-D release limited to 2,200 screens.
 The film earned $27 million on its opening day, and
$77 million over its opening weekend, making it the
second largest December opening ever behind
I Am Legend, and the 25th largest national United
States weekend opening, despite a blizzard which
blanketed the East Coast of the United States and
reportedly hurt its opening weekend results.
 The IMAX opening also broke box office records,
with 178 theatres generating approximately
$9.5 million.
 3-D Blu-ray
 Cameron initially stated that
Avatar would be released in 3-D
around November 2010, but the
studio issued a correction: "3-D
is in the conceptual stage and
Avatar will not be out on 3D Blu-
ray in November.“ In May 2010,
Fox stated that the 3-D version
would be released some time in
2011.
 It was later revealed that Fox
had given Panasonic an
exclusive license for the 3-D Blu-
ray version and only with the
purchase of a Panasonic 3DTV
and 3D Blu-ray player. The
length of Panasonic's exclusivity
period is unknown and said to be
"unusually long"
 What is 3D Film?
 Cameron first devised the concept for Avatar in the mid-
90s, but decided to hold off on the actual filming until
the technology caught up with his vision. When the
technology appeared to be lagging, he stepped in to
lend a helping hand. The director worked alongside
cinematographer Vince Pace to pioneer and patent a
"fusion digital 3D camera system" that he first employed
on his 2003 documentary, Ghosts of the Abyss, and has
subsequently refined and adapted. He shot large
portions of Avatar on a "virtual camera", a handheld
monitor that allowed him to move through a 3D terrain,
in effect editing this existing, computer-generated
universe. The result, he boasts, turns cinema into "the
ultimate immersive media
 4. TECHNOLOGY USED IN PRODUCTION,
DISTRIBUTION & MARKETING

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/
20/james-cameron-avatar-3d-film
“Is James Cameron's 3D movie Avatar the shape of cinema
to come?” The Guardian (20/08/09)

 Friday 21 August, is officially designated "Avatar Day", although "Avatar

Quarter-Hour" would be more accurate. It is the date that sees the public
unveiling of a full 15 minutes of teaser footage from the new 3D
blockbuster from director James Cameron, playing at hundreds of sold-out
cinemas across the planet; the date that could come to define how
Hollywood frames the world. "We are born seeing in three dimensions,"
Cameron proclaimed recently. "Most animals have two eyes, not one. There
is a reason." After tomorrow, industry experts predict, 3D cinema will never
be the same again.
 They call it "the illusion of depth", a conjuring trick on the visual cortex,
and it works like this. You take two cameras and shoot with them side-by-
side. Later, when the results are projected, the viewer interprets these dual
images as a single three-dimensional image.
 We see (or believe we see) a foreground, a background and, best of all,
bulky projectiles that threaten to leap from the screen and land in our laps.
This is the USP of 3D or stereoscopic cinema, a gimmick as old as film-
making itself. In the past the success of this illusion has likewise proved
illusory – but this time, we are assured, the landscape is different.
 Distribution
 Whilst 20th century fox and its many departments were
filming, editing the Avatar, the distribution and
marketing divisions were busy developing strategies to
promote the film in order to maximise profitability for
their soon to be released film
 DISTRIBUTION:
 Organisation of synchronised release, internationally
 Getting film stock, ready for digital transfer to cinemas
 Communicating with worldwide distributors for exclusive
deals, country to country for maximum reach
 Dealing with cinemas (Showcase/Cineworld/Odeon/AMC)
etc for initial release phase, domestic & international
deals
 Technology – Distribution/exhibition
 The days of film reels are eroding
 It is cheaper and faster to send hard drives with film pre-loaded
then shipping separate film reels around the world
 Films are now projected on special projectors through a hard drive
and not of actual film cells/negative through a projector in the
traditional way (Imax projector below)

 3D film needs a special projector and currently there are as not as

many as 2D projectors
 5: Targeting national and local 'British' audiences by
the News Corp global network of media operations

 Traditional Marketing:
 Glitzy ‘Tent pole’ Movie premiere – Odeon London (images of celebrities showcased in
Women magazines) – Hello, OK, Heat etc – wider demographic appeal and
Newspapers – Sun, The Times, NOTW)
 PR junkets (interviews in a rota in hotel, guest appearances on chat shows)
 International news conferences (Brazil, France etc)
 Advertising – Billboards, bus stops,
 Tv spots, Cinema trailers (various lengths – shorter then bigger)
 Radio adverts – Commercial Radio/ Review shows
 Newspaper adverts (Sun, NOTW, Times – synergy)
 Magazines – Film and other genre magazines: Empire (exclusive)
 Commercial/business TIE-INS - (McDonalds/Coco-cola/Mattel/Panasonic/Yahoo)
 Merchandising – Unique Products that stem from Film (see powerpoint)
 Viral Marketing:
 Online trailers (various) Exhibition
 I-Tags
 Pop-ups
 Online reviews
 Technology - Exhibition
 This is all about how ‘Avatar’ the film can and has been
exhibited and accessed
 1) Teaser trailers (x3?) various lengths
 2) World Premiere – London Odeon
 3) International cinema release on 2D & 3D (all around
the world)
 4) Special editions on IMAX 3D & extra 8 min’s version
on Cinema prior to Oscars (March 2010)
 5) 6 months later – DVD release (rental-blockbuster)
 6) DVD & Blu-ray home release (Spring 10)
 7) Internet downloading on mobile and VOD
 8) Xmas special edition DVD & Blu-ray release Nov 10
 9) Future 3D- Blu-ray release sometime in 2011
 6. Audiences own experiences of media
consumption of News Corp products

 Students can assess how they are targeted by such News

Corps products on a daily basis and does any of the
marketing filter through in terms Passive theories such as
the hypodermic needle effect?. Eg: Buying a happy meal at
Mcdonald’s, buying a ‘Avatar’ film poster, buying a book on
the world of Pandora special?, dressing like the Na’vi for
fancy dress parties? or are they Active consumers. Eg: You
reject the hype and refused to watch the film when it was
released due to ‘overkill’, and you have no interest in the
franchise for whatever reason? Or you watch the film on
your terms.

 Also, FANDOM, making spoof versions of Avatar on YouTube

shows that people have embraced the franchise and taken
ownership of it. This helps to cultivate the brand and keep it
in the public realm/public sphere
 See examples of ‘Swedes’ on blog
 FANDOM
 The public making their own versions of Avatar,
including new trailers for Avatar 2 etc.
 When people remix music it is called “MASH-UP’s”
and when films are remixed it’s called “SWEDES”
and part of what is known as the “LONGTAIL”
 HW: Go onto Wikipedia and look up the term the
longtail in the context of Audience ‘Active’
behaviour
 Avatar made over $2 billion dollars making it the
most successful film of ALL time
 How did you consume ‘Avatar’? Think in terms of
what items you bought to do with the film?
 EXAM REVISION
Section B: Institutions and Audiences
 Answer the question below, making
detailed reference to examples from your
case study material to support points made
in your answer
 2. Discuss the issues raised by an
institution’s need to target
specific audiences within a media
industry which you have studied
 Write down the question and highlight the keywords
 Re-write the question to make it
applicable to us
 2. Discuss the issues raised by an institution’s need to
target specific audiences, within a media industry which
you have studied
 Think in terms of News Corp/20th century fox/UK audiences etc

 REWRITE:

 Discuss the issues raised by News Corp’s need to target UK

audiences through its release of the Avatar, 2009
 Why and how does News Corp target uk audiences with a
film such as the Avatar, 2009?
 How did News Corp target uk audiences through it’s
processes of production, distribution and marketing?
  Q: There are 3 core areas of discussion for the exam. Looking at the images, what are they?

 [Draw the triangle and 4 arrows on A3]

1. INSTITUTIONS: News Corp

20th Century Fox (subsidiary)

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2. EXHIBITION 3.
2. MEDIA PRODUCT/ AUDIENCES:
ARTEFACT: UK audiences
3. FANDOM reception of News
Avatar (2009) Corp products