Business Practices |  |
Chapter Summary| There are business functions that almost all electronic media companies use. A CEO must be the leader and set direction. This person (or the equivalent) also handles crises, deals with the outside world, and hires and motivates other employees. The finance function involves keeping records such as balance sheets and profit and loss statements, paying bills, and making collections. Human resources is involved with hiring and firing, benefits, and unions. People in programming decide what the product should be and how and when to get it to the public. They can obtain material from other sources or produce it themselves. Those in engineering operate, maintain, and install equipment. The sales function can be directed toward advertisers, toward customers, or toward both and usually encompasses audience measurement and traffic. The marketing part of sales enhances the station image. Public relations and promotion build goodwill and, it is hoped, bring larger audiences.
These functions differ from one form of media to another. Top management of a large media conglomerate may not know much about the radio business, even though the company owns radio stations. But the general manager of a radio station should certainly know that business. Financing for a movie involves a great deal of risk and attention to insurance. Financing of public television is likely to involve keeping track of grant money. Human resources is more likely to exist in a large company than a small one. Programmers at broadcast networks have much more to oversee than programmers at cable systems. Radio stations, TV stations, and cable networks buy from syndicators, but commercial and public radio and TV networks and the home video industry do not. The chief engineer at a cable system is in charge of installing cable and is most important for a new system. Broadcast TV engineers became less important when broadcasting matured, but now they are more important because they are developing HDTV. Broadcast sales departments deal almost exclusively with advertising, while cable and DBS systems are concerned with selling to consumers. Promotion is very heavy for movies and can be heavy for TV programs if the promotion department can win over the sales department in terms of obtaining airtime.
With the contents of this chapter in mind, describe the role of each person listed on the organization chart in Exhibit 8–12.
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