Seventh Lecture: Commercial Media vs Public Media

In the lecture, we were introduced to commercial vs public media and mostly focussed on the commercial media aspect. Commercial media is the eyes and ears for advertisers.
Commercial media is profit-driven media production, producing profitable programs audiences like and selling advertisements for gain. It is also a not government funded, thats why they need business to generate 'audiences' or it will fail.

The major players of commercial media:

• News Limited produces newspapers, cable television, films, magazines, books, and sports.
• Fairfax media produces newspapers and digital media.
• Nine Entertainment Co. produces free to air TV, magazines, digital media, and events.
• Win produces free to air TV, radio, sports, and tele-comms.
• Southern Cross produces free to air TV and radio.
• Seven West Media produces free to air TV, newspapers, magazines, and digital media.
• Ten Co. produces free to air TV.

Commercial Media has a form which has three sections where they get their profits. There is subscriptions such as Foxtel, where people pay an amount of money to get certain television channels with particular programs they are interested in. Sponsorship is another section where companies such as Nine Entertainment Co. sponsor an event and get profit from it. The other section of the form is subsidised companies which are given money from the government. In my opinion, companies that get money from the government are more biased on the information they give there audiences. Examples of this would be production of news from companies such as Nine, Seven and Ten. Commercial media functions has propaganda, as I said biased information and there is a social aspect.

Bruce brought up a very interesting question in the lecture, he said “can commercial media deliver on both commercial (profit) and special ('public trust') functions? (or is it really just about the mighty dollar?)
To keep it even, or under control, commercial media has formal state requirements they have to follow and are also overseen by the state government. To also assure this commercial-social function there is an "ethical wall" in place. What the editor of The Guardian says about the function of commercial media is as follows: The 'first duty [of the media] is to shun the temptations of monopoly. Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free, but facts are sacred." What he is saying is, it is their job to give the right facts and not their judgment on the matter.