Commercial Schmercial. Lecture 6.

Commerical media has a wide range of avenues, free-to-air tv, paid tv, newspapers, radio stations and magazines. This type of media is essentially profit driven. It is not government funded or license funded. The profit stream comes from the use of advertising and using the audiences gained to respond to advertisement used. The greater the audience the greater exposure of advertisements.

Within Australia there is many actors within commercial media these include:

• Nine Entertainment Co. 
• News Limited
• Fairfax Media
• APN News & Media
• WIN corporation
• Southern Cross Broadcasting
• Seven West Media
• Ten

Alike many of my peers the surprise revelation of companies owning what we the public see as competing media. For example, News Limited - The Australian and The Courier Mail. This aligns nicely to the conclusion that Commerical Media is essentially just for the MONEY. 

A question was posed during the lecture asking, "Can commercial media deliver on both commercial (profit) and social (public trust) functions? (or is it really just about the almighty $ dollar?)". My answer to this question would be a straight No and Yes, it is all about the almighty dollar. An example of this came about not that too long ago. I was sitting at home surprisingly watching the television (that is rare for me) and for about 5 whole seconds a breaking news reel came across the screen stating "Breaking News: 8.7 earthquake off Indonesia. Tsunami Warning". I have never shared my story but my parents are missionaries and my Mother could possibly be in Indonesia (I didn't know which one at the time since I had not heard from her in a week and she moves too fast for me to catch up). For me this message is alarming, I expected the next advertising break to at least have a news update on exactly what had happened considering there was a 'Breaking News' reel shown. This did not happen. The advertisements started and all it showed were those annoying back to back insurance advertisements. I remember thinking right at that moment "Damn you, Commerical Media!". 

Now the quote by John McManus from the lecture springs to mind, 'Commercial = corrupt; lack of quality; profit over-rides social responsibility'. I highly agree with this quote and am disappointed that this is the reality of commercial media.