Project Materials

MASS COMMUNICATION

INFLUENCE OF ADVERTISEMENT REVENUE ON PROGRAMMES AND SERVICES DELIVERY

INFLUENCE OF ADVERTISEMENT REVENUE ON PROGRAMMES AND SERVICES DELIVERY

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INFLUENCE OF ADVERTISEMENT REVENUE ON PROGRAMMES AND SERVICES DELIVERY

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

There is a symbiotic link between the media and large business, who will ultimately become marketers. After all, their items will be featured in media. Advertising should be viewed as a necessary evil with its benefits.

The media sector is continually changing; as the economics of running a media institution become clearer, particularly in light of threats to media revenue, the link between the press and advertising may only grow stronger.

A large body of scholarship has investigated and questioned the role of mass media and advertising within contemporary capitalist society’s institutional structures.

However, the majority of the available literature investigates the content and structure of advertising, noting their ability to mislead information or the ideological impact they have on the audience.

Bagdikian (1990), Croteau, and Hoynes (1997) attempted to give a historical foundation for advertising and the communications business, situating them within the history of contemporary capitalism and investigating their impact on sociopolitical economic institutions.

The rising expense of news creation, as well as the corporate sector’s recognition of the importance of promoting their products to a larger market, have contributed significantly to the rise of the advertising industry and the press’s reliance on advertising revenue.

Advertising can be viewed as an important institution in consumer society due to its economic benefits, particularly in regulating consumer demand and facilitating capital accumulation.

The modern media’s reliance on advertising for revenue has reached unprecedented levels, while the use of advertising revenue varies by segment. Electronic media ‘which depends primarily on advertising’ must be responsive to the needs of marketers and their impact on its listeners.

The bottom line is that the media firm must target a class of audience that most marketers are looking for, which is people with discretionary income who are willing to buy their advertisers’ products.

To attract advertisers to a media company, its management must be able to demonstrate that it has the exact target market that the marketers require.

A great media outlet targeted at the proper audience, with a large viewership number, is undoubtedly a goldmine for its owners, as advertisers will beg for the opportunity to reach their market through that audience.

Advertising and its ramifications for the political economy of the media have been criticised and defended by various people. According to Hoskins, McFadyen, and Finn (2004: 248), “advertising is both attacked as a monopolistic and wasteful practice and defended as promoting competition and lowering the cost that consumers pay for goods”.

One significant advantage of advertising is that the income earned empowers the media, resulting in funding for improved journalism facilities. While the benefits of advertising appear to be admirable, studies have revealed that this advantage appears to be modest because the need for profit frequently leads to shrinkage of newsrooms, overwork of journalists, a lack of sufficient training, and low pay.

Critics such as Leiss, Khline, and Jhally (1986) have also noted what appears to be the effect of advertising on overall media content. Advertising’s negative impact includes the avoidance of contentious topics, bland programme formats, audience segment stereotyping, and media industry ownership concentration.

The concentration of media ownership and its relationship to advertising has a significant impact on media content. According to Hoskins, McFadyen, and Finn (2004), reliance on advertising, whether as a partial or total revenue source, can have an impact on content, first because the advertisement is a significant part of the content, and second, because content is frequently aligned to promote or create a suitable environment for the advertiser.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The reality of the market forces the press to become more reliant on revenue sources, jeopardising its independence. This is because the media has become increasingly reliant on sources of revenue other than copy and content revenues.

The media has essentially become a business concern. Its public service function, the principal one being the providing of information, only boosts its audience numbers, whilst the main goal appears to be to sell the audience to advertisers for profit.

Investors and stockholders whose primary goal is profit margin increasingly control news organisations. According to Herman and Chomsky (1988:7), the profit motive has “encouraged the entry of speculators and increased the pressure and temptation to focus more intensely on profitability”.

This viewpoint is consistent with Pogash (1995), who, among other opponents, claims that publicly-owned corporations have abandoned their journalistic mission in pursuit of high profits to please Wall Street analysts and stockholders.

According to McManus (1994:1), “the news is now a ‘product’, the listenership the ‘customer’, while the circulation or signal area is now a’market'”.

He observes that, despite the fact that profit-seeking business has served as the enabling foundation for journalism in our country since entrepreneurs overtook politicians as press operators 150 years ago, it has typically been kept in the basement. The business of selling news has been invited upstairs, inside the temple (ibid).

McManus stated that a few purists, such as Carl Bernstein23, condemned the business orientation of modern journalism for fostering a ‘idiot culture’:

1.3 Goals and objectives of the study

The purpose of this research is to determine the impact of advertising revenue on program and service delivery at Kaduna State Television (K.S.T.V). The study’s aims are:

i. Determine the positive effects of advertisement revenue on program and service delivery at Kaduna State Television (K.S.T.V.).

ii. Determine the negative effects of advertisement income on programme and service delivery in Kaduna State Television (KSTV).

iii. Determine why electronic media houses rely primarily on advertising revenue.

iv. To propose solutions to media companies’ over-reliance on advertising revenue.

1.4 Significance of the Study

According to Harber (2005), while there are more media outlets, fewer are willing to criticise those in power since a growing reliance on advertising encourages middle-of-the-road, non-controversial, and overly cautious journalism.

This has given rise to “a triumph of entertainment over journalism, ruthless costcutting that leads, for example, to less international, first-hand or investigative reporting and the abundance of bland, grey, over-processed journalism” (ibid)27.

It is noted by Chambers (2000:94) that “it has led to the reduction in independent media sources, the commodification of media contents and audiences, and the neglect of minority and poorer sections of the audience” .

This study is significant because it will investigate the impact of advertising revenue on consumers, businesses, and, most crucially, media outlets. The study’s findings will be beneficial to consumers because they will reveal facts about the commodity sold by the TV.

The various media outlets will learn more about the benefits of advertising revenue. They will be instructed on how to lessen their reliance on this source of revenue and so successfully manage it.

1.5 Research Questions.

The research questions that will guide this project are as follows:

i. What are the beneficial benefits of advertising revenue on programme and service delivery at Kaduna State Television (K.S.T.V)?

ii. What are the negative consequences of ad income on program and service delivery at Kaduna State Television (K.S.T.V).

iii. What are the reasons why electronic media companies rely primarily on advertising revenue?

iv. What are some ways that media companies might reduce their reliance on advertising revenue?

1.6 Scope of the Study

The study’s goal is to determine the impact of advertising revenue on program and service delivery at Kaduna State Television (K.S.T.V).

1.7 Limitations of the Study

The researcher encountered the following problems:

– Some of the responses from the organisations did not cooperate (KSTV).

– Due to time constraints, responses during the interviews were not always comprehensive.

– The questions were limited due to the design and nature of this study approach. However, the researcher tried to get the most precise data possible.

1.8 Definition of Terms

Advertising is an audio or visual kind of commercial communication that uses an openly sponsored, non-personal message to promote or sell a product, service, or concept.

Advertisers: These are the people who sponsor advertising, usually businesses that want to market their products or services.

Communication is the act of transferring intended meanings from one entity or group to another using mutually understood signs and semiotic norms.

Contemporary: a person or thing that lives or exists at the same time as another.

Electronic media are broadcast media that make use of electronic technology.

Influence: the ability to have an impact on the character, growth, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself.

Journalism is the creation and dissemination of reporting on the interactions of events, facts, ideas, and people that make headlines and, to some extent, inform society.

KSTV – Kaduna State Television

Mass communications is the study of how people and entities communicate with huge parts of the public at the same time via mass media.

Media refers to the collection of communication outlets or technologies used to store and convey information.

Revenue: is the money that a business has from its normal business activities, typically from the sales of goods and services to clients.

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