Ahh, Commercial Media. The sometimes bane of my television-watching existence. We've all experienced that moment where we're watching our favourite tv show and something major occurs. We're on the edge of our seats, waiting for the dilemma to be resolved, when instead the picture changes, and we're informed that Super Cheap Auto is having a massive sale! "Oh, thank heavens," we exclaim. "Of all the things that could have interrupted my tv program, I'm glad it was Super Cheap. I'll be down there to buy new seat covers and some fluffy dice for my rear view mirror right away!" If you don't actually do this, don't worry. No one does.
But you still remember about Super Cheap Auto and their massive sale. Maybe next time you go past a Super Cheap Auto, you will go inside and have a look. And therein lies the value of commercial media.
As Bruce said during the lecture, commercial media exists to provide 'eyeballs and ears' for advertisers. They aren't particularly concerned with the programs being aired. They just want people watching their advertisements and buying their products.
Seeing as commercial media depends on business success to survive (no government funding for the media moguls, it seems!), it isn't surprising that the main focus is advertisements. Without ads, the advertisers can't show off their products, so they can't sell them. If they can't sell their wares, they can't make money. If the advertisers don't make money, there's no one to fund commercial media. No commercial media, no ads. It's a vicious cycle.
When Bruce started listing off all the various commercial media groups and what they run, I tried to write them all down, but gave up fairly quickly. The list was staggering. A fair portion of everything we read, hear and watch is commercially funded.
The point and purpose of commercial media in a democratic society (apart from making money) is to provide a truthful and intelligent account of important, interesting and relevant information/news to the masses, as well as provide a forum for comment and criticism about anything and everything, including those we elect to govern us. However, you can often see when The Man has started to apply pressure to get his way, particularly with the often ridiculous smear-campaign ads that are aired every election time. I guess the government pays as well as anyone else.
I also don't always agree with the 'truthful and intelligent' accounts being presented. Commercial media has a reputation for bending the truth in order to make a story seem more exciting. For example, in my last tutorial we discussed a story about a man and a young girl from a remote indigenous community getting lost in the desert, with the girl tragically dying of malnutrition a few days later. Once commercial news got their hands on the story, they broke or bent half the rules in the book, reporting conjecture or outright falsehood as fact. In the end, many reported versions of the story revolved around 'paedophilia' and 'abduction'. Classy.
To round off the lecture, it was mentioned that advertising revenue for commercial media is down, meaning reduced quality and more 'bought-in' content. Yay, repeats! However, I think that fixing this situation would require an increase in quality, in order to keep people watching. Showing endless repeats of 'Two-and-a-Half Men' and 'The Big Bang Theory' or whatever it is they repeat is not going to attract new audiences, or bring the old ones back. Take a gamble and go for some variety!
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