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Taylor Wright, David Varney, Quinn Weldon, and Austin Anderson
Commercial media is media that is privately owned by larger companies and corporations. The sole purpose of commercial media is to make money off their programs and advertising (Commercial). Noncommercial media refers to media that primarily does not involve the larger corporations, for example state sponsored TV (Commercial). Noncommercial networks on TV or radio don’t run advertisements in exchange for large profits, instead they’ll rely on and ask for donations with a brief pause during the show (Commercial).
The goal of commercial media is to capitalize on the mass media industries. The main industries are newspapers, magazines, television, and the internet (Biagi 8). In America the majority of broadcast time has about a ⅓ ratio of commercial to show time. About “10 to 20 minutes of show time are typically devoted to advertising,” usually depending on the network the show’s being aired on (Commercial). The amount of money that advertisers will have to pay for a time slot can also depend upon that shows ratings and the network it’s on (Commercial). Each network is different, ranging from the type of shows they stream and the advertisements they show on their network. There is “about 1,700 televisions stations operating” just in the United States alone, with the majority being commercial media-based networks (Biagi, 9). Commercial media is the market’s perfect tool for advertising and displaying goods and services to the mass public (McChesney).
Noncommercial stations back in the early 1900’s survived for years “on a mix of modest federal funding, grants, and listener donations from regular fundraising campaigns” (Usher). In recent years government funding in America for noncommercial medias has gone down. Having lack of public broadcasting networks causes a lack of difference in mass opinion. In other countries the reason that small newspapers and magazines still exist is because of government newspaper subsidies, these subsidies have been around since the 1970s (Usher). Government subsidies in other countries were put in place with the purpose to “help keep afloat struggling newspapers and create a diversity of opinion” (Usher). The reason noncommercial media has slowly been disappearing from the world is because the world is shifting towards watching and consuming only commercial media. Government funding is being pulled from the majority of noncommercial media within the U.S.
Commercialism has some very major influences on media, in numerous different ways. But it is important to note that commercial forces are always influencing the type of media that is being produced, whether it is local, national, or international. Some of these implications have very negative effects, that can be somewhat detrimental to media corporations. Such as large-scale layoffs, pulling of funding, conflicts of interest, and instances of that nature.
Now with commercial media being a major force in