British and American Film Industries

A summary of the American and British film industry would be that the Americans own 90% of the industry with only 6 main producers:

·         Warner Brothers – owned by the conglomerate Time Warner – made sex in the city, inception, harry potter, the dark knight rises..

·         Paramount – owned by the conglomerate Viacom (who also own MTV and Nickelodeon) – made the jackass films, mission impossible and Shrek.

·         20^th Century fox – owned by the conglomerate News Corp ( who also own sky, the sun, fox etc.) – they made avatar, ice age, A team …

·         Walt Disney – owned by the conglomerate The Walt Disney Company ( who also own Disney land, Pixar, Disney channel …) made pirates of Caribbean, Narnia, toy story …

·         Columbia pictures – owned by the conglomerate Sony Corporation (also owns Sony records, Sony music, Sony computers…) made men in black, girl with the dragon tattoo, 21 jump street…

·         Universal pictures – owned by the conglomerate GE (general electric) ( also owns RCA films) made Ted, Safe house, Bourne films

The American film industry is dominated by 6 major studios each owned by a conglomerate. The film studio is only a subsidiary. This makes it an oligopoly as there are only a few firms in the industry. Some of the American conglomerates use vertical integration for example news corp. This is where they own more than one step in the supply process, e.g. producing the film, marked using another subsidiary and putting trailers on another subsidiary. However some use horizontal integration. This is when they own several stages in the supply process e.g. when the produce films and games about the films on the computer and phones.

The British film industry has no conglomerates and owns much less of the industry. The main ones are:

·         Big talk Pictures – made Paul, Shaun of the dead, Hot Fuzz

·         Working Title Films – made the boat that rocked, about a boy, Billy Elliot, Bridget Jones

·         Film 4 (subsidiary of channel 4) – made This is England, East is East

·         BBC Films (subsidiary of BBC) made – the damned united, the boy in the striped pyjamas

·         Eccose Films – made Mrs Brown, Charlotte Grey

·         UK Film Council (government owned and funded by the lottery) – made woman in black, kidulthood and adulthood