Research: Secondary (Industry)

The Film Industry
Jaeger, J. (Copyright 1995 - 2003). The Movie Industry . Available: http://www.mecfilms.com/moviepubs/memos/moviein.htm. Last accessed 29 January 2010.

The Film Industry
The film industry is one of the largest industries worldwide. It fetches billions of dollars every year in America alone. "Over 70% of the population rents or goes to movies regularly, thus accounting for over 1.5 billion movie attendances each year in the U.S." (Jaeger, J. (1995-2003) www.mecfilms.com/moviepubs/memos/moviein.htm). This fact/statistic shows how popular the film industry is with just America and its interest is still growing.
Over the past twenty-five years technology and accessing films has changed, which has affected the film industry. Other ways of being able to watch films has change such as video, DVD, television and the Internet. By having these other ways to see films the film industry has “marked an overall increase of at least 30%” showing that these other forms of text have increased the film market. From the use of these other texts low budget films that usually would lose money because they weren’t publicised in film theatres are now benefiting from VHS/DVD sales.
Each year approximately five hundred film are made and approximately a third of these films made are by major American companies and the remainder are by “Independent” companies. There are 7 major film industry studios, 16 smaller ones and the rest are independent.
From the five hundred films that are made less than half of the films are shown in cinemas. These films now rely on VHS/DVD sales. “There were over 350 features released in 1998 by major and mini-major studios as compared to about 290 in 1997.”
Every year the population of people watching films is on the increase: “U.S. box office hit $8.4 billion in 2001, a 9.8% increase over the previous year”. Despite the profit increasing from the film industry the amount of cinemas in America has been decreasing (“As of 2001 there were approximately 6,596 theatres” but previously “As of 1996 there were approximately 7,215 theatres”). This shows that due to the wide variety of technology purchasing a film outside of the cinema is increasingly easier and increasingly more popular.

Demographics
In America the most popular age groups that go to the cinema are people aged 16-20 and 30-39. These target audiences have always been a popular age group target for film makers. The percentage that they make up is approximately 38%. In America a survey was then carried out over the population to find out how often people attend the cinema and the outcome was: “21% go to the movies at least once a month, 34% go once in 2 to 6 months and 12% go less than once in 6 months. 32% never go to the movies”.

Box Office Sales
Big budget American films come under the category “A-Pictures” and usually produce “$30 million within even 14 weeks of theatrical release”. And since film being released on DVDs and such like, this profit then increases sometimes by two or more. The film that has sold the most in a short space of time was Jurassic Park. “Jurassic Park is the largest-grossing movie in history, earning over $900 million in the worldwide theatrical markets alone”.
Independent production companies come under the category “B-Pictures” and over ten years has been known to make “in the neighbourhood of $9 million”. The maximum reached by an Independent company was “just over $70 million”. And the lowest profit earned was $1.6 million.

The Magazine Industry
Advertising Standards Authority. (2009). About ASA. Available: http://www.asa.org.uk/About-ASA.aspx. Last accessed 28th January 2010.
IPC Media. (NA). About IPC Media. Available: http://www.ipcmedia.com/about/. Last accessed 28th January 2010.

The Magazine Industry - Advertising Standard Authority
The Advertising Standard Authority are a British company who set the rules of what is and is not allowed to be shown in advertising. They have to check to make sure that advertisements are legal to be distributed to their audience. The Advertising Standards Authority has "Key Principles" which advertisers must go by. They are a list of rules that say: "advertising must be responsible, must not mislead, or offend, and specific rules that cover advertising to children and ads for alcohol, gambling, motoring, health and financial products" (Advertising Standards Authority. (2009) cap.org.uk/The-Codes/Key-principles.aspx

The Magazine Industry - IPC Media
IPC Media is a company who produce different media brands. They have: "over 85 iconic media brands" (IPC Media. (NA) www.ipcmedia.com/about
They produce a wide variety of brands that reach a large audience. "reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 44% of UK men –almost 27 million UK adults". This shows a lage population of people in Britain coming into contact with their branding. As well as paper based products they get a lot of attention on line too: "our online brands collectively reach 20 million users every month."