Sky vs. BBC

Ownership models

There are two different types of ownership models, Public and Commercial.

Public - The BBC is a 'public corporation': neither a private corporation nor a government department. The high ideal is that it is held in trust for the public of the UK by the BBC Trust. It is owned by the British public, who all pay an annual license fee of £145.50 – the equivalent of £12.13 per month or just under 40p per day. The BBC used its income from the license fee to pay for its TV, radio and online services.

Commercial – This is about making money and profit for the company. The intention of Sky is to make a lot of money by providing the best in entertainment, television, sports and movies for its subscribers. Sky attracts more customers than the BBC as it has a bigger range of entertainment and it has something for everyone. Sky is run by Robert Murdoch, but is owned by the shareholders and investors. Sky makes their money through a subscription-based service, which allows their customers to choose between many different packages varying in price. This makes them feel like sky if very flexible and customizable.

The history of BBC and SkyBBC - The BBC has been around for almost a century. BBC was the first live broadcast, and first broadcasted from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford in June 1920. The 1920s saw the end of the amateur radio enthusiasts, and the beginning of a professional broadcast organisation. It was an exciting time where experimentation ruled, not only amongst the pioneering engineers, but amongst creative staff where programme formats were being invented by the day. The 1930s was the decade that changed everything, and the BBC was aware that it might have to operate in a radically different way should war come, but this didn’t stop the BBC. It was the first broadcaster to begin a regularly scheduled TV service, in 1936. Radio went from strength to strength with the brand new Broadcasting House opening in 1932. Innovations, such as live commentary on location became possible because of the need to cover the war. A lightness of presentation changed the ‘feel’ of radio forever, as it had to find ways of keeping the listening public’s morale up when war came. The BBC went from a privately owned company to a public company between 1923 and 1926. The 50s was the decade of television, with the televising of the Coronation the driving force behind a massive increase in sales of sets. A decade of colour, drama, and international collaboration mark the 1960s as an era of exceptional broadcasting innovation and excitement. Colour TV ended a long period of technological isolation for Britain, the BBC drama department produced world beating TV series with Doctor Who and The Forsyte Saga the two main successes. The first satellite broadcasts also became a reality. The 1980s was a decade of major international conflict and the BBC found itself torn between covering conflict in

several locations. Conflicts in the Falkland Islands, Northern Ireland, Tiananmen Square, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, stretched resources immensely. The 2000s was the age of the digital revolution. The digital revolution that started in the late 90s, neared part completions with the analogue TV switch off in 2012. Since the start of 21st century, digital BBC TV channels, and radio services have increased, and HDTV has become the standard for many.

Sky - Sky Television plc was originally Satellite Television Ltd. (SATV), originally set up by Brian Haynes in November 1980. Brian Haynes was a former journalist employed at Thames Television. On 16 January 1984 the channel was renamed Sky Channel. Rupert Murdoch and Jardin Owens put in new management, expanded its broadcast hours while expanding its programming line up which provide a mix of English-language sports and entertainment shows, including a number of new music programs. The new management also adopted a more aggressive policy to reach an increasing number of cable households throughout Europe. Shortly after the channel's relaunch, the first cable system in the UK to incorporate it on a permanent basis was Swindon Cable. In Republic of Ireland, Sky Channel started to become widely available among cable systems in around 1987. In 1989 the Sky Network was born, which was a four-channel Sky Television package. This was after Disney pulled out of a deal with Sky, which hurt the company’s viewership. In May of 1989 Sky prepared to give away set topboxes and dishes to new customers in a bid to gain more customers, but this venture was not helped with the failed Disney deal looming over the company’s head. In the autumn of 1991, talks were held for the broadcast rights for Premier League for a five-year period, from the 1992 season. ITV were the current rights holders, and fought hard to retain the new rights. ITV had increased its offer from £18m to £34m per year to keep control of the rights. BSkyB joined forces with the BBC to make a counter bid. The BBC was given the highlights of most of the matches, while BSkyB paying £304m for the Premier League rights, would give them a monopoly of all live matches, up to 60 per year from the 1992 season. Murdoch described sport as a "battering ram" for pay-television, providing a strong customer base. A few weeks after the deal, ITV went to the High Court to get an injunction as it believed their bid details had been leaked before the decision was taken. ITV also asked the Office of Fair Trading to investigate since it believed Rupert Murdoch's media empire via its newspapers had influenced the deal. A few days later neither action took effect, ITV believed BSkyB was telephoned and informed of its £262m bid, and Premier League advised BSkyB to increase its counter bid. In September 1993, BSkyB launched Sky Multichannels which was the present digital platform's analogue predecessor. Sky Multichannels was a subscription package that gave access not only to Sky's own channels but also those of third party broadcasters. BSkyB's digital service was officially launched on 1 October 1998 under the name Sky Digital, although small-scale tests were carried out before then. At this time the use of the Sky Digital brand made an important distinction between the new service and Sky's analogue services. Key selling points were the improvement in picture and sound quality and an increased number of channels. Within 30 days, over 100,000 digiboxes had been sold, which help bolstered BSkyB's decision to give away free digiboxes and minidishes from May 1999. By June 2000 the service had 3.6 million subscribers, which gave BSkyB 8.988 million subscribers

across all platforms. BSkyB's analogue service ended in October 2001, and the digital service would eventually be marketed as just 'Sky'. By June 2005, the number of digital subscribers increase to 7.8m, while it produced 38,375 hours of sport in 2005. BSkyB's direct-to-home satellite service became available in 10 million homes in 2010, Europe's first pay-TV platform in to achieve that milestone. Confirming it had reached its target, the broadcaster said its reach into 36% of households in the UK and Ireland represented an audience of more than 25m people.

Key players

BBC – one key player at the BBC is Greg Dyke. He was made Director General from 2000 to 2004. At the beginning of his tenure, he famously promised to "cut the crap" at the Corporation. The "crap" he referred to was the complex internal market Birt had introduced at the BBC which, it is claimed, turned employees away from making programmes and into managers. Unusually for a recent Director General, he had a good rapport with his employees and was popular with the majority of BBC staff, his management style being seen as more open and risk-taking than Birt's

Another key player for the BBC was Greg Dyke’s successor, Mark Thompson. Thompson was appointed Director-General on 21 May 2004 (-2012). Although he had originally stated he was not interested in the role of Director-General and would turn down any approach from the BBC, he changed his mind, saying the job was a "one-of-a-kind opportunity". On his first day he announced several management

changes, including the replacement of the BBC's sixteen-person executive committee with a slimmed-down executive board of nine top managers.

Another key player for the BBC was Tony Hall. Hall was appointed Director General on 22 November 2012. He is the 16th Director General of the BBC. He joined the BBC as a news trainee in 1973 and during a 28 year career at the Corporation he held roles including Senior Producer at World at One, Assistant Editor of the Nine O'Clock News, Output Editor for Newsnight, culminating as Chief Executive of BBC News from 1996 to 2001. While at the BBC he launched Radio 5 live, BBC News 24, BBC News Online and BBC Parliament.

Sky – Sky has one main key player, and that is Rupert Murdoch, who has been with the company since the beginning. He formed BSkyB in 1990. By 2000, Murdoch's News Corporation owned over 800 companies in more than 50 countries with a net worth of over $5 billion. During the summer of 2011 Murdoch came under investigation due to reports that the News of the World had allegedly hacked the phones of people of interest. During the investigation on the 16thand 17thof July various papers published a letter signed by Murdoch saying he was very sorry for the “serious wrongdoing” that took place by his company. Because of this Sky reported a 15% drop in profits as they were seen as a company of Murdoch’s.

Technologies of production / Emerging Markets Sky – Sky is very good at keeping up to date with the latest technology and has been since the beginning. From the introduction of sky+ in 2003, to their sky-go app that allows their users to watch sky TV on their tablets, computers or mobiles, it is clear that sky are well on top in this area. Also, with the rise of streaming services such as YouTube and Netflix, sky has kept up to date with the introduction of sky on demand which allows the user access to all the latest TV shows and movies.

BBC- The BBC has also kept up with the ever changing media platforms. The way people view media has changed dramatically since when the BBC was first founded, so obviously they have had to change the way they deliver the content to us, the viewers. One major change in recent years is the introduction of BBC iPlayer. This service allows people to catch up online on the shows that they might have missed on TV. Apart from recent episodes of your favourite shows, they also have a catalogue of your old favourites too.

Income generation

BBC – The BBC is funded by the money generated from license fees. Every home in the UK that has a TV must pay an annual license fee of £145.50 (£12.13 per month or just under 40p per day). This license fee also means that the BBC are not allowed to show commercials or ads on their programs. As the BBC gets its money from TV licenses, it does not take money from companies or shareholders, so it does not have to do what they want. The BBC also make money from selling DVDs and CDs of their most popular TV and radio shows. They also sell magazines and books about their television programmes, such as the Doctor Who magazine.

Sky - Sky operates on a subscription based service, so a lot of the money they make is from their subscribers. The customer will choose what package they want (movies, sports, kids, etc.) and they can even customise what channels they wish to have. Sky also gains some revenue through investors and selling shares, but the majority of their revenue comes through their customers. Sky has many products which improve their customers viewing pleasure, such as the Digibox, Sky+, Sky+HD, High Definition viewing, NowTV, and 3D channels. All of which cost extra for their customers. A typical Sky package with a sports and a movie package can cost anything from £60 per month. HD and on demand services can also increase this cost.

Flagship Programmes / Programing Platforms:

BBC- Because the BBC has been around longer, they have a massive advantage when it comes to flagship programmes. The BBC has always produced some great shows and continues to do so. Shows like The Office, Top Gear, Doctor Who, Match of the Day and many more. These shows all have massive following all around the world.

Some channels that the BBC have to offer are: BBC 1 BBC 2 BBC Three BBC Four BBC News CBBC CBeebies

All have very different styles of programming, so you could say the BBC offers something for everyone to enjoy (also many of these channels are available in HD.)

Sky- Sky has also produced some great quality television programmes over the years, and have also been known to pay massive sums of money to show other programmes (Game of Thrones, Walking Dead etc) and sporting events from all over the world (The Olympics, Premier League etc).

Some Channels Sky has to offer are: Sky 1 Sky 2 Sky 3D Sky Atlantic Sky Living Comedy Central

(And many more!)Again, all have very different styles of programming, so there is something for everyone to enjoy (also in HD.)

Regulations

BBC- Ofcom has certain powers to regulate the BBC's licence fee funded television and radio services aimed at audiences in the UK, but not the World Service which is grant-in-aid funded. In addition, the BBC's commercial services (whether broadcasting to the UK, or from the UK to our international audiences) must comply with the whole of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code.Broadcasting Code applies in the following areas:

Protection of under-18s

Harm and Offence

Avoidance of inciting crime or disorder

Responsible approach to religious content

Prohibition of use of images of very brief duration

Fairness

Privacy.

Sky- Sky is regulated by their own department of complaints. Sky subscribers can get in contact with the company and lodge their complaint. The subscriber can do this in a few ways; email, via post, over the phone, or through an online chat with one of Sky’s online advisors. As well as the BBC, Sky TV is regulated in part by Ofcom. Ofcom regulates and takes complaints regarding BSkyB. They have a duty to represent the citizens and consumers by providing competition and protecting the public from harmful or offensive material. BSkyB is regulated by Ofcom, and Ofcom can investigate any complaint from Sky’s subscribers towards the company.

Criticisms and Controversies BBC- Throughout the long history of the BBC, they have had many controversies including Political correctness, homophobia, racism etc., but more recently, the big controversy of Jeremy Clarkson being fired. In 2013, Clarkson was accused of using the N-word while chanting the “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” rhyme in a clip that did not air on the motoring show. Clarkson posted a video apology online saying he had tried to obscure the word but that his efforts “weren’t quite good enough”. The Jimmy Savile abuse scandal is also one that springs to mind. These are just some criticism, among many, of the BBC.

Sky- Sky has also had many controversies over the years of them being in business. The real big controversy surrounding Sky was the phone hacking scandal. The owner of Sky, Rupert Murdoch, owns a company called News Corporation, which ran a newspaper in the UK, called News of the World. The employees of the newspaper were accused of hacking people’s phones in order to get stories. There are many people that have criticised Sky for their business strategies. Since BSkyB is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns News Corporation, many people think that Sky is evading paying tax, although this has never been proven.

Audience Feedback

BBC- After a bumpy few years which has seen the co-operation fall out of favour with the general public, it is widely agreed that the organisation need to be more transparent in their dealings, and more unbiased in their news reporting. The BBC Trust has created a complaints framework, which lays out practices for complaints handling:

Complainants should be treated politely and with respect

The stages of all procedures will be published on the BBC website so that information about complaints procedures is clear and readily available to the complainant and will be provided on request

A complainant/member of the audience who contacts the BBC at Stage 1 with a comment or complaint should be informed in the reply that there is a complaints process and that there may also be a way of pursuing a complaint outside the BBC

Any response to a complaint should inform the complainant of the next step in the process for taking the complaint further if applicable and where, if applicable, to pursue the complaint outside the BBC

Complaints should be responded to in a timely manner

Sky- Sky is the main television provider these days, however this does not make them exempt from negative audience feedback. Many people feel that they charge too much for their services, and catch many people with hidden fees and rolling contracts. It is also felt they hold too much of a monopoly over other broadcasters when it comes to signing up the latest hit TV shows or sporting events.

Links used:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBChttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_(United_Kingdom)http://www.bbc.co.uk/http://www.sky.com/products/sky-tv/http://www.ofcom.org.uk/