Alabarran, Chan-Olmsted and Wirth (2006, 275) believe that media management stands alone as a distinct field of management for two major reasons. The first reason is the unique position that media organizations as well as their output occupy in the cultural and political life of societies and nations where they operate in (Cook 1998, 122; Sparrow 1999, 46; Golding & Murdock 2005, 68).
Croteau and Hoynes (2001, 54) and Mcchesney (2008, 44) believe that media organizations have the capacity, and in some situations, the obligation to influence the cultural and political behaviours, attitudes as well as opinions of audiences.
The second reason is its economic position. Media organizations produce products which are quite different from products offered by businesses in other industries. (Napoli 2003a, 106) states that media organizations produce content which are distributed to audiences as well as audiences to be distributed to advertisers.
(Hamilton 2004, 11) confirms that it is these products, content and audiences, which make the media to have distinct economic characteristics that distinguish the media industry from other industries across the globe.
It is these economic distinctive characteristics that require managers of media companies to have specialized training as well as specialized understanding of the unique dynamics of the industry’s marketplace so as to be able to make effective managerial decisions and strategic plans (Herrick 2004, 102). This paper discusses how content and audiences have affected the structures of media organizations.
Content and audience have significant influence on various political and cultural issues in the society. Therefore media organizations have to focus on the core of the businesses while serving the information needs of the audiences (Barkin 2002, 168). However, the increasing competition in the market among media companies has created intense competition for audience attention.
This has largely been caused by the increased channel capacity of different forms traditional media, television and radio, as well as the growth of content delivery technologies such as the internet and Direct Broadcast Satellite. Napoli (2003b, 64) says that these factors have fragmented the media audience such that it has become quite a challenge for one media outlet to attract significant audiences.
Where there was once two international television networks, CNN and BBC, there are several of them nowadays including CNBC, CNN, BBC, FOX News, Al-Jazeera, MSNBC as well as numerous other regional and national television channels. Alabarran, Chan-Olmsted and Wirth (2006, 284) report that an average home receives more than a hundred television channels which is also supplemented by content from the internet.
However, the huge increase in the content options available to audiences has not been accompanied by increase in the amount of money that people spend on media. Consequently, the structure of most media organizations has changed in attempts to remain relevant in the market (Vogel 2004, 156)).
Some media companies have formed mergers while others operate in joint partnerships to achieve economies of scale as they reduce costs. Mergers and partnerships allow media companies to increase the content they provide to the audiences while still maintaining profitability (Doyle 2002, 211).
Partnerships allow them to share news content, production equipment, newspaper distribution, costs for capturing events as well as transport costs incurred in collecting information.
Marketing research has also become very important in the structures of media organizations especially in the print industry as result of changing consumer (audience) trends. The increasing available content options especially the internet, which can be easily accessed through mobile phones and other devices, has influenced decline in newspaper readership.
Thus, media companies are increasingly relying on media research as well as focus groups to be able to decide on the content of their newspapers. As such, media organizations are continuously investing in their marketing departments to be able to present content that make them relevant to the audiences they serve.
According to Craft and Davis (2000, 225) media companies have to enhance their ability to successfully serve the public interest.
The distinct economic characteristics of the media industry, content and audience, have also influenced the type of media ownership structures adopted by most media organizations. (Compaine 1995, 758: Picard 2002, 203) states that media organization managers are adopting business structures that enhance their abilities to provide more audience service-oriented content as well as services.
Some media organizations have adopted more concentrated ownership structures which provide them with greater resources to devote to content delivery (Compaine and Gomery 2000, 123). This allows them greater economic efficiency as they are able to reduce costs of collecting news content as well as expenditure on staff (Einstein 2004, 76).
Media organizations which adopt concentrated ownership structures employ relatively fewer journalists to collect information since the information collected to be broadcasted on television are also broadcasted on radio, and produced in newspapers.
This means that media organizations can use one information sources to serve various audiences using different media channels. Again, such media organizations present wide content since they have journalists employed to meet every sector in each media category that the organization deals.
Alabarran, Chan-Olmsted and Wirth (2006, 287) report that a study that was conducted by the Federal Communication Commission in 2003 revealed that television stations which have newspaper holdings always provide more local news as well as public affairs programming as compared to media companies without newspaper holdings.
Thus, newspaper-television cross-ownership has become very important in ensuring wide content for audiences considering that the economics of media marketplace have undergone significant changes over the past two decades (Napoli 2004, 115).
Napoli (2002, 172) and (Denison, Frenette & Spavins 2002, 243) state that the economics of scope as regards content collection and dissemination across various distribution technologies have encouraged the production of public interest content.
Media companies which operate in one distribution channel form partnerships with other media companies with different content distribution channel to be able to acquire more content at reduced costs (Hollifield 2004 83).
As competition in the media industry marketplace continues, media companies consistently expand to reach as many audiences as they can. Large national as well as multinational media outlets are increasing their ability to effectively reach more audiences and to provide content that serve the needs of audiences in specific geographical regions (Napoli 2000, 578; Napoli 2009, 169).
As a result, large media companies are opening up media outlets (subsidiaries) in other countries to enable them collect and disseminate information relevant to these audiences while integrating them with international news.
The need to reach more audiences and present wider content has prompted media organizations to build their satellites in various regions across the world. In some cases, multinational media companies collaborate with local media companies to construct their Direct Broadcast Satellite in their firms so as to be able to transmit content gathered directly to their transmission stations.
Bowman and Willis (2003, 9) state that the distinctive economic characteristics of the media industry, audience and content, have influenced media organizations to adopt different models in their business processes as they seek to provide quality content to their audiences.
Bowman and Willis (2003, 11) state that some media companies adopt top-down news model where the media organization has total control over the content that the audience receive. The media organization filters all contents before presenting them to the audience.
All news from advertisers and other sources have to pass through the media organization before they are presented on television shows, newspapers and web sites. This means that everybody involved in content gathering submits their contents to be edited or rejected.
On the other hand, some media organizations prefer to let audience access the content without filtering. These organizations adopt bottom-up news organization structure. They are structured such that all participants in the media broadcasting process have opportunity to present their contents directly to the audience.
In such media organizations, editors, advertisers, reporters, publishers, community as well as the audience are allowed to participate in content production (Hamilton 2004, 287). All the participants have the opportunity to change roles in the content production process so as to allow the audience to get involved. The audience have a chance to share their opinions and to contribute in content gathering as well as production.
They make comments and interact with the management team of the media organization, reporters, advertisers and editors. Bowman and Willis (2003, 11) state that in this structure anyone can be a reporter. Media organizations which adopt intercast (bottom-up news) structure have the ability to provide wide content since the audience are also involved in news collection.
Most media organizations especially large national and multinational companies have adopted the intercast structure to gather information from the audience and the community as a whole, as well as, in presenting content to other audience.
This normally happens through interviews both on television and off-air, commentary and analysis, opinion sections in newspapers and magazines and direct reporting from the audiences. Thus, this structure helps media organizations improve their interactivity with audiences, and hence, achieve audience loyalty.
The distinct nature of the media industry has created need to adopt organization structures which enhance interactivity between the media organizations and the audience.
Thus, most media organizations have adopted numerous interactivity as well as communication technology such as web blogs, websites as well as discussion boards. These allow media organizations to understand their audiences and therefore develop programs and produce contents which meet the audiences’ interest.
The media industry is very distinctive due to the products that it offers to consumers. Content is produced to be distributed to the audience, and this makes the industry unique as compared to other industries. Content and audience therefore influences the structure of media organizations and the way the organizations operate.
Media organizations have to adopt structures which allow them to provide quality content to the audience while reducing costs. Thus partnerships and concentrated-ownership structures have been adopted to help media organizations increase the quantity and quality of their content so as to reach more audiences while operating at lower costs.
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