Television Production Companies Research Articles

How counter-fate relational practices mitigate resource acquisition challenges during project nascence

Research shows that embedded relations can facilitate the resource acquisition process in entrepreneurship. Yet, as relations are dynamic and subject to change, it remains unclear how entrepreneurs can acquire necessary resources when pre-existing ties may not yet or no longer be relevant, sufficient or accessible. Under these circumstances, acquiring necessary resources is a challenge and one that novice entrepreneurs in project-based enterprises face repeatedly as they seek to sustain their businesses. Evidence from 123 projects developed by six newly formed independent television production companies in the United Kingdom shows that new entrepreneurs can manoeuvre around constraints by engaging in one of four counter-fate relational practices: posturing (i.e. exaggerating interest from key ties), status sequencing (i.e. developing key relations in sequence based on status), geographic sequencing (i.e. attaining key ties in sequence based on location), and opportunistic manoeuvring (i.e. manipulating the opportunism of potential resource holders). We contribute to entrepreneurship research by showing how resources can be acquired despite a lack of key embedded ties, and highlight enabling conditions; and to project studies by illustrating how projects progress past nascence to launch and acquire new clients or repeat commissions.

How Nascent Projects Acquire Resources to Launch

Prior research has tended to focus attention on temporary projects once they have already been established. This is a problem since it misses the challenge of resource attainment during the critical pre- project phase that leads to temporary project establishment in the first place. While networks are viewed as a key mechanism leading to resources it remains unclear how these can be attained when those seeking to launch new temporary projects are themselves new to project business and face constraints in building key ties as a result. Drawing on 123 nascent projects developed by six newly-formed independent television production companies in the UK our qualitative study finds that they can enhance their prospects of establishing new temporary projects by engaging in one of four behavioural strategies labelled as counter-fate behavioural strategies. This study contributes to research by focusing attention on the neglected pre- project stage of temporary project development. We show how by exaggerating the interest of key ties, paying attention to the sequence in which they are formed, and manipulating the opportunism of potential resource holders they can help to counter some of the inertial constraints that they face. Our work further draws attention to how a coordination role is used as a source of change; and highlights the conditions under which each behavioural strategy may become salient.

Catching up with our Nordic peers: The rising demand for Finnish drama series and its impact on local film and television production companies

Traditionally, the Finnish film and television industry has revolved around producing feature films and television series for local distribution. In the past five years, however, the industry has been transformed by a rising demand for high-end drama series. In addition to the positive developments for the economic stability of production companies, challenges are unfolding as the demand for new content keeps growing. This article introduces three recent and central developments, drawing on interviews with four local producers and an analysis of industry and media reports. First, new players have entered the market and introduced new financing opportunities, both domestic and international. Second, international co-production opportunities have grown through production companies’ new international focus. And finally, the introduction of the Finnish production incentive for the audio-visual industry has enabled more ambitious projects. These developments have led to two main challenges that the industry is currently facing: the imminent lack of experienced crew and the need for revised practices for screenwriting, development and production.

After the gold rush: industrial re-configuration in the UK television production sector and content

Recent technological and market changes in the television industry appear to have transformed the corporate configurations which conduce to economic success in the production industry. As a result, many leading independent television production companies in the United Kingdom and elsewhere across Europe have become prime targets for corporate activity and many have been subject to takeover, often by the US media groups. Does this matter? Does the concept of ‘national’ television content still have any relevance in the digital era? Drawing on a multiple-case-study-based analysis of several UK-based television production companies over recent years, this article examines how corporate takeovers in the production sector may affect creative decision-making and impact on the nature and quality of television content. Against a background of increased investment interest from multinationals in indigenous players in the United Kingdom and across Europe, the analysis presented makes a timely and policy-relevant contribution to knowledge.

‘Remember, it’s just television’

This article discusses the corporate strategy of one of the most successful television production companies in Norway: Rubicon TV. Based on a historical analysis from the company’s establishment in the early 1990s until today, the article illuminates how Rubicon TV has navigated in and contributed to the changing Norwegian television landscape. Rubicon TV has gone from a supplier of popular and provocative programmes to a small group of Norwegian broadcasters to a truly digital and global industrial force which produces linear ‘flow’ programmes as well as web-TV and streaming series for both national and international players.

Television production: configuring for sustainability in the digital era

Over recent years leading independent television production companies in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe have become prime targets for corporate activity, and many have been subject to takeover, often by US media groups. Why is it that nurturing the development of television production companies which achieve scale but, at the same time, remain independent appears to be so challenging? This article considers which factors are crucial to the success of television production businesses and argues that, besides the ability to make compelling content, two key variables which strongly affect commercial success and sustainability in this sector are, first, effective management and exploitation of intellect property rights (IPRs) and, second, scale and configuration of activities. Focusing primarily on the latter, it analyses how changing technological and market conditions are affecting the advantages conferred by size and by adopting differing cross-ownership configurations thus, in turn, fuelling current processes of industrial re-structuring.

Attaining Legitimacy in Temporary Business: The Case of New Entrepreneurs in the Television Industry

This work seeks to identify behavioral processes that new entrepreneurs can adopt to construct legitimacy in frequently changing temporary business environments. Focusing on independent television content production in the UK, the study finds that new entrepreneurs exploit the varying roles that their projects can play and then sequence these in order to tailor the legitimacy they need to build their business. This research draws on a 5‐year inductive study of 81 projects won by entrepreneurs of five new independent television production companies.

Do black women still come first? Examining Essence magazine post Time Warner

ABSTRACTEssence magazine is the longest operating magazine catering to a predominately African-American women audience in the US. In 2000, media conglomerate Time Warner purchased 49% of Essence parent company Essence Communications Inc. In 2005, Time Warner purchased the remaining 51% of the black-owned company. As a media conglomerate, Time Warner owns major publishing houses, film, and television production companies, including 130 magazines, New Line Cinema, CNN, and HBO. Essence states it is “the voice and soul of Black women” Collins [Collins, P. H. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York, NY: Routledge] argues that black women must speak in their own voices in order to reject prevailing stereotypes operating on the bodies of black women. The mission statement of Essence aligns itself in what Collins calls “safe spaces” for black women to self-define themselves and articulate their lived realties. A critical theoretical framework allows uneven power relations to be examined and offers emancipatory perspectives. The goal of this study is to examine if Time Warner’s purchase of Essence has caused a shift in the voice and content of this magazine.

Reality-Based Television Versus the Civil Right to Privacy: A Battle of Access

the general public has come under closer scrutiny from those who seek to obtain information about them, whether they like it or not, from technologies such as hidden cameras, Internet spyware, miniature recording devices, and super-telescopic photography lenses (e.g., Elder, Johnson, and Rishwain). Society's interest in voyeurism or curiosity (Baruh 202) appears to fuel a growing of television programming called reality TV. Its popularity has influenced traditional television journalistic newsgathering practices and along the way has created challenges regarding the public's right to privacy.In Wilson v. Layne and Berger v. Hanlon, the US Supreme Court's decisions affected newsgathering techniques that can be used by journalists while accompanying law enforcement officials during the execution of a search warrant. Shulman v. Group W Productions further altered the media's process of gathering information by clarifying access to emergency situations and access to patients where guarded personal information is exchanged between the victim and an emergency respondent.These decisions were meant to provide outlets with clear boundaries regarding the public's right to know versus the public's right to privacy or the First Amendment versus the Fourth (Esch; Gossett; C. Calvert). The outlets in question were print and broadcast news organizations in the Wilson and Berger decisions. The courts did not specify whether alternative programming provided by independent television production companies was included under the media ridealong decision.With the rise of reality-type information gathering, the question remains of whether or not these lines of privacy have been crossed (Mast). The theoretical and context of this research is to explore implications of decisions regarding privacy rights and apply them to justice (Erikson) and accident and emergency format (Kilborn; Bondebjerg) reality-type television programming.TheoreticalOrbe suggests using diverse methodological and theoretical approaches to critical scholarship (350). Cross-disciplinary research methods are employed during this article's exploratory study, including genre criticism (Butler 432) examining production techniques, critical analysis of reality television (Lunt; Hight), and critical or empirical studies (Trubek 585), where concepts are applied to sociological inquiry.Previous critical (CLS) are associated with application of social science and research on the behavior of actors (Trubek 600). Trubek postulates that a relationship exists between legal beliefs and practice (604) and social order and action. Critical empiricism (Coombe 71) in law is applicable in film theory, the ideological efficacy (118) of television. Causal research in CLS, proposes Tushnet, is an interminable critique (516) on social values. Miller posits the field of television borrows from CLS (3). CLS allows an opening in sociological research, with foundations providing a basis for critical application.This article examines the rise of the tabloid journalism type of reality television (Cavender and Fishman; B. Calvert et al.; Turner) and applies Prosser's torts on privacy to the production of nonfiction documentary-style programs, otherwise noted as reality-type television. The article focuses on one state case, Shulman v. Group W, and two federal cases, Berger v. Hanlon and Wilson v. Layne, to the application of reality television programming.Reality Television DefinedThere are many definitions of reality-based television programming. Prosise and Johnson, expanding on Cavender and Fishman, indicate a belief that reality programming blurs the line between news and entertainment . . . fact and fiction (Prosise and Johnson 73), where the videotaped interactions are presented to the audience as real rather than fictionalized encounters (e. …

Just Travesties: TV Parodies of Hollywood Films and Copyright Infringement Lawsuits

This essay investigates Loew’s Inc. v. Columbia Broadcasting System and Columbia Pictures v. National Broadcasting Company, two copyright infringement lawsuits that Hollywood film studios brought against television production companies for parodies of their work that were symptomatic of the fraught relationship between the two industries in the early and mid-1950s. I show how competing theories of copyright, the particular form of sponsorship of American commercial television, and a lack of attention to the specific ways that film and television can generate parody shaped these early decisions and still, to a certain extent, haunt parody-as-fair-use jurisprudence.

New Strategies in Finnish Independent Television Production

This article investigates independent television production and business strategies used by small and fairly new companies in that industry. It reintroduces Mintzberg’s concept of emerging strategies and emphasizes the role of network, both as a theoretical approach and as an important real-life strategy for small companies. In empirical terms, we identify five general strategies applied by independent companies: (1) Quality, (2) Specialization, (3) Broad market scope, (4) Beyond broadcast, and (5) Networking. Our categorization is based on personal interviews with 26 independent television production companies in Finland. Our main findings show that an increasing part of the business activities are designed for other purposes than traditional broadcasting. However, many companies manage to keep one foot in traditional television and the other in the emerging niches of television and new media hybrids. The global crisis of public service television will make independent companies even more inclined to redirect their strategies and to go increasingly beyond broadcast. When analyzing national and global television systems, the growing importance of independent companies needs to be recognized.

Risky business: The independent production sector in Britain's creative industries1

Many small business advisers in Britain are understandably reluctant to accept that independent creative and media businesses are different from any other small business. After all, small business start-ups face similar problems (cash-flow, lack of capital investment) and need advice and training on similar issues (financial planning, marketing, basic business skills). Likewise many British entrepreneurs would argue that creativity and risk are not the exclusive preserve of the currently fashionable so-called 'creative' or media industries. So what is especially risky about the business of cultural production? Risk in the creative and media industries stems both from the nature of the product and the nature of creative processes. The British definition of creative industries currently centres on the notion of 'intellectual property' (Smith 1998). According to this definition, record companies, web-site designers, film and television production companies are all in the business of buying and selling ideas and information. Although not made explicit here, it is clear

On the Mutual Intelligibility of Spanish and Portuguese

People who make decisions about public language use seem not to be in agreement. During the World Cup Soccer Championships held in Mexico in 1986, with Spanish language interviews on most television newscasts, TV Globo in Brazil translated all Spanish interviews with subtitles, voiceovers, or consecutive interpretation by the reporter. Another Brazilian network, Manchete, did not translate at all. Television production companies in Colombia customarily broadcast interviews of visiting Brazilians, frequently soccer players, in Portuguese with no translation. The Sdo Paulo International Airport makes virtually all announcements in Spanish, as well as in Portuguese, English, and French. The Rio de Janeiro International airport, on the other hand, does not routinely make announcements in Spanish. A variety of opinions have been expressed in writing, by both linguists and non-linguists. The British linguist William Entwistle (1953 [31]), in describing what makes two speech forms languages rather than dialects stated that mutual ease or difficulty of understanding is not the primary consideration. Norwegians and Swedes, Spaniards and Portuguese, can understand each other fairly well in their different languages. A popular tourist guidebook (Jebsen and Biel, 1986 [329]) states the case for one-way understanding: Most Portuguese have a fairly good, natural comprehension of spoken Spanish. But be forewarned that the reverse is not the case. Knowing Spanish will put you into a unique position for one-way communicationable to ask directions or make reservations but unable to understand the response.