Television Funding.

Television channels make their money from things such as holding competitions, the use of syndication, merchandising, license fee and subscriptions. However most of the money that is made is from commercials as they are what pretty much every channel has, with the exception of the BBC. There are three main types of television funding. Commercial, Subscription and Public service. Commercial means the channels in question(ITV) benefit mostly from the commercials shown inbetween the programmes that are on the channels. Whereas subscription TV means the companies such as Sky and Virgin get the majority of their funding from the subscription fees that their customers are charged to view their channels. Companies such as Sky and Virgin also sell merchandise and because they are subscription companies, they have to make sure that what they put on their channels is already usually well known by the public and liked, otherwise they would lose subscribers, which would result in a loss of money. Public service makes most of their money from the license fee, and then go on to hold several competitions on their channels on a regular basis etc. For example, shows such as the The X Factor get money from competitions held on their show and a huge amount of money off the votes that the audience give, they ring in to save the contestant they want. Without the audience ringing in, there wouldn't be a show. In all three types of funding, syndication is sold to other channels.. This is where you repeat the channels on a different channel or on the same channel but at a later time. Channel 4 is both commercial and public service as it gathers most of its funding from commercials and the license fee. Channels that take more risks are thought to be less benefitial, however proven by a channel like Channel 4 with things such as The Inbetweeners, risks sometime mean more money is made as an outcome. Public Broadcasting may be nationally or locally operated, depending on the country and the station.. In some countries Public Broadcasting is run by a single organization where as other countries have multiple public broadcasting organizations. The biggest public broadcaster worldwide by budget and emoloyees is the German ARD, followed by the BBC. Other large public broadcasters are channels such as; China Central Television, China National Radio and Japan's NHK. Advertisement revenue provides a huge portion of the funding for most privately owned television networks. However, some things are only allowed to be advertised to a certain extent, for example political advertisements are heavily restricted in France as it's seen as a political campaign, and some, like Norway completely ban it. Television advertisements are on between shows, between the intervals, I think this is mainly to grab people's attention, keeping them focused on the channel so they wont change the channel during the breaks. However now with things such as TiVo and DVR, these allow the audience to skip the breaks altogether, which means missing the adverts.