Essay: What impact does ownership have on the media institutions in the industry you have studied?

We have been looking at such cinema's as Odeon and Vue, with our chain cinema's with ownership and Cinema City, which is an independent cinema. Owned cinemas do have some advantages and some advantages, and so do independent cinemas, both being very different in there approach to film's.


The biggest advantage of ownership cinemas is they get all the new Hollywood's biggest films as soon as they come out, and all the new technology to keep there cinemas up to date, like 3D. Another advantage is that all profits around chain cinemas are spread across the chain, so cinemas don't have to manage there own profits. Some disadvantages of the chain cinemas is that all the schedules are run by head office, so the cinemas themselves have no choice in what movies they play. Also the chain cinemas are over run with American films, and it doesn't really matter if the film is good, if not a big enough budget it could not be played in these cinemas, which is killing British films as they don't have the same amount of money to make such huge hits as America do. Something called Hollywoodisation is occurring, where people are becoming too obsessed with big budget American films, with most/all of chain cinemas films are just about making a profit.

The biggest advantage of independent cinemas is that they bring culture and classic films into our society, by playing films which are classics, that everyone can enjoy, independent cinemas wouldn't usually play films with big budgets and big Hollywood actors and directors, mostly playing films from around Europe and from small time producers. With ownership cinemas they don't get these factors as all the same big time films are being shown with no small time independent films being shown. As if your an independent cinema you get money from Europa to show European films (other than British films) which spreads culture.

In conclusion, i think ownership is a good way of keeping alot of people happy and giving them what they want, but does not tend to the needs of all viewers, and is not always in the best interests of a company as they have to run all there ideas through head office, and share out money equally.