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Economics of media: Ratings and Revenues

The economics of media can be explained in the simple equation Ratings= Revenues. As a commercial industry, the media earns profit through advertisement. Advertisers pay for air-time or ad-space in media platforms to reach or to promote their goods or services to the media’s audience. Advertisers are more likely to invest if there is a high volume of consumers patronizing the media programs or content or if their target market is among those consumers.

The Opportunity

The Philippine media is a great asset in the country’s economy. In fact the Philippines Star reported that in the year 2010 alone, the creative or copyright-based industries contributed P661.23 billion to the Philippines economy.

The Challenges

Despite thriving as an industry, the media remains vulnerable to economic threats. The most notorious among them is privacy. Privacy is defined as the unauthorized use of another’s production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of copyright by the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary.

The existence of cheap or even free digital technologies like torrent downloading makes piracy even more attractive to consumers.

The Opportunity

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines education as the knowledge, skill, and understanding that you get from attending a school, college, or university. Today, education has taken whole new meaning with media and information.

Online education is now a fast becoming trend in society. Schools and universities are adopting this practice as part of their offered services. Everyone with access to the internet need not physically attend a class to get an education. This setup is popular among those who wish to further their education but do not have the time or energy to deal with regular school. With media and information, one can earn a degree from the comfort of their homes.

Education traditionally requires a student to prove that learning took place. To do so, one must be able to pass exam that will test their knowledge on a certain subject and produce outputs that will confirm if they can apply that knowledge. Media information makes this process a little less rigorous through content contribution. By allowing people to share their knowledge online for others to see, the network of experts can check and balance each other’s understanding of subjects, therefore refining learning through interaction.

The convenience, abundance, and interconnection, aspects of media and information for education are opportunities worth taking advantage of.

The Challenge

In education, the opportunities brought about by media and information is also to be blamed for its many challenges. Not only does this promote laziness, constant access also puts a lot of pressure on servers, requiring constant upgrades and regular maintenance around cyberspace.

The overwhelming amount of content to but found online requires the tedious process of sorting through unnecessary or unrelated content to one’s research. As challenging as it may be, it is necessary. Allowing anyone with access to the internet to contribute to the network of information raises credibility and authenticity issues.

The Opportunity

Among the first to realize the possible positive applications of the media and society’s co-dependent relationships were Daniel Lerner and Wilbur Schramm. In their perspective works, The Passing of Traditional Society (1958) and Mass Media and National Development (1964) served as the founding texts of development communication according to University of Pennsylvania (UPenn). Development communication uses communication to aid in the development of society. One practical application of this is community-based media programs. Through information dissemination, promotion of development advocacies, and providing a medium for social interaction among communities, these types of programs pave the way for a positive social change.

The Challenge

Media and information have the power to sway society’s beliefs and perception. People have the tendency to receive data from the media and accept it as fact right away without conducting due diligence.

The Opportunity

The interrelationship between media and politics provides a fair foundation in nth function of media as a source of information. Provisions in the law like the Freedom of Information Bill which mandates the release of public documents to those who require it benefits the media in their access to information and the government in its war against corruption (The Official Gazette)

The Challenge

As a developing country, the governments concentrate on solving problems like poverty, unemployment, lack of proper healthcare, and access to education.

The shortage of government funding, not to mention the lack of projects and programs, that help cultivate creativity – which is the core of media – prevent the media industry in reaching its potential for success. Even the weak enforcement of certain laws to protecting the media exposes them to threats that could have damaging repercussions on the industry.