Script:
(Really boring intro, really unenthusiastic) hello this is Andrew here and I work in Pretty alright Education and I am here today to speak about 20th Century Fo-
(explosion, fire on bottom of screen)
JUST KIDDING. I'M ANDREW FROM EXTREME EDUCATION OF DEATH FOR KIDS; THE LEADING IN TEACHING ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW. DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE THIS VLOG ON 20TH CENTURY FOX? DO YOU?!
Alright I won't yell throughout the whole thing. 20th Century Fox is a film company owned by 21st Century Fox, which is a behemoth company who are most likely very evil (picture of Mr Burns). They own a big chunk of your entertainment, have a revenue of over 27 billion dollars (lower voice a lot) according to Wikipedia (back to normal), have the Chairman being Rupert Murdoch, and they set orphanages on fire. (gasp sound)
Just kidding!
In this... VLOG (lower voice a lot) god I hate that word (back to normal) I will be looking into 20th Century Fox and their business model in the categories of Ownership, Operating Model, Products, Market Position, and competitors. I'll mention their cool new dad, 21st Century Fox in this Vlog too, so buckle down and get in for the ride. (get a really evil looking face and have a maniacal laugh sound effect)
Ownership:
Now 21st Century Fox is known for being a Conglomerate, which is basically a big company made up of smaller companies. So you like some Grapes being made up of.. grapes.. bad example, but you know just a collection of things mish mashed together to make something else, that's what a Conglomerate is. Now these smaller companies that make up 21st Century Fox are known as Subsidiaries. 21st Century Fox's subsidiaries include Fox News, FX, STAR TV Shine Group, and Fox Sports Media Group. So yeah they're in charge of a lot of things. But the main one for this Vlog will be 20th Century Fox Movies. This is where a lot of the movies you may enjoy stems from. Now 20th Century Fox also has its own Subsidiaries, including Blue Sky, 20th Television and TSG Entertainment.
21st Century Fox are a cross media ownership so they produce things like their News and websites, but they mainly specialise in Television and movies which is where 20th Century Fox shines. You've most likely helped them get the money they have by watching many of their shows and movies. I will get into them soon, but there are a lot. (show a bunch of movies scrolling to the side and then stop at How to Train your dragon) Huh.. what's this? How to Train Your Dragon 2? Isn't that DreamWorks? Well that's a joint Venture
Which reminds me, now it's time for Operating Model
Now back onto the joint venture, a Joint Venture is the collaboration of two different companies that aren't owned by each other but collaborate in a way where they both benefit. This can vary from things like Coca Cola product placement in a movie, to all the cartoon characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Joint Ventures can occur to get more people interested in a brand or product by showing it in another to generate Synergy, now keep that word in your mind. Synergy is a very good money generating technique as say in a 20th Century Fox movie like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes has a scene where Caesar drinks Coca Cola. Why would he drink Coca Cola during the time where apes take over Earth is unknown but whatever. Suddenly the Planet of the Apes fans are thinking of Coke, which may make them all buy a lot of Coke after the movie, making Coca Cola gain a lot of money. For getting Coca Cola promoted in the movie, 20th Century Fox should take a slight cut of those profits which ultimately generates a lot of money for Coca Cola and Fox simultaneously... and all they needed to do was make a chimp drink a can of coke.
Business.
But anyway you know how I told you to remember Synergy? Well it doesn't only have to work through A Joint Venture as since 20th Century Fox owns its own subsidiaries, they can very easily promote each other. Fox TV produce The Simpsons and Blue Sky produces Ice Age movies; since they're both ultimately 21st Century Fox, just like my Planet of The Fizzy Beverage loving Apes example, a cross promotion can happen. Hey forget can, it already has! (show the crossover). Subsidiaries working together is incredibly easy yet incredibly profitable business.
20th Century Fox, like any movie/TV company, operate by this. The production process, distribution and consumption - with the creation of the movie or TV show itself being production, getting that said product out there to an audience via advertising and sending to cinemas being distribution, and having consumers use it being consumption. This can work two ways. If a company was to handle these three things on their own then that would be Vertical integration which is more common for very independent film production companies. But since 20th Century Fox is under big scary monster corporation 21st Century Fox, horizontal integration can be done. This means anything that's produced by 21st Century Fox can be used to promote something. Fox News could have advertisements for a movie on their websites and radio, the Simpsons could parody it, and anything else to show off the movie. Since they're all under the same company in the end, this is very easy to do creating Synergy.
Products.
20th Century Fox has a huge lineup of TV shows and movies, including (speed up voice to show there's a lot) The Simpsons, Die Hard, Firefly, Let's be cops, How I met your Mother, Night at the Museum, Modern Family, X-Men, Archer, The Maze Runner, Sons of Anarchy, The Planet of the Apes series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Aliens, Glee, Avatar, Family Fat dad adventures (show Family Guy), Ice Age, Cops, Garfield, other Family Fat dad adventures (show the Cleveland show), Rio, It's always sunny in Philadelphia, We bought a zoo, Raising Hope, Tooth Fairy, King of the Hill, Gulliver's Travels, Water for Elephants, My Name is Earl, Taken, Bob's Burgers, Marley and Me (Sad music plays with a slow fade to black in white which is immediately cut into me singing) "You're not the boss of me now, you're not the boss of me now"- (show Malcom in the Middle obviously), the best movie of all time Space Chimps, 24 and a whole lot more. Basically they have a lot and you've probably seen or heard of most of the examples I set, possibly all of them
Market Position.
20th Century Fox is obviously a successful subsidiary for 21st Century Fox. Their movies are everywhere and they have a hold on some of the most popular franchises and studios right now including Planet of the Apes and DreamWorks... you know they made Shrek 2 once.. but still the point remains. In fact 20th Century Fox is so successful there's like 25 Seasons of the Simpsons, what other animated sitcom lasts that long? [pause] And it's not even a good show any more! Can you safely say you've never seen a 20th Century Fox Produced TV show or Movie? Of course not. They're a media giant! Look at how much 21st Century Fox are worth. over 27 billion dollars according to Wikipedia, and according the Forbes the brand name for Fox alone is at over 10 billion dollars which is insane, also meaning 20th Century Fox movies end up with a truckload of money put in to guarantee people know about new movies and they can be up to a high standard.
Now 20th Century Fox make movies for a mass audience. This means that they aim to create films that try to please an incredibly large amount of people, which generally means they include tropes people will be used to. Classic Cartoon character brought back in CGI while contrasting in the real world, that's a popular trend Scooby Doo started and look, Fox did Garfield and Alvin and the Chipmunks (lowered voice) sadly (rise up again) and some other cartoons brought back.... even the smurfs. Unfunny parody movies that, unlike a good parody movie, don't make clever use of simple jokes but rather put really predictable and cringeworthy references, you know the stain on comedy that Scary Movie left - oh would you look at that, Fox produced Vampire's Suck... like seriously they failed the easiest job ever of making fun of Twilight? But I digress. Roald Dahl book made into a family film - yup (show Fantastic Mr Fox), popular person takes the role of a quirky fairy tale like character - sure (show Tooth Fairy)- you see these are movies that sell, and 20th Century Fox just churn them out because people will keep paying to see them. Did we need a Madagascar 4, really? No. Of course not, but people will see it. They're even turning to the video game fans with Hitman and Assassin's Creed movies for crying out loud, they may as well just get a money printer.
However, other companies also want a share of that money so now we're onto Competition
Firstly there's the Walt Disney Company who, like Fox, operate in News and TV via ABC [TEXT: It's American if you don't know what ABC is], have popular Super Hero movies like 20th Century Fox (lower voice) in fact Disney actually have good Super Hero Movies [poke fun at Fantastic Four] (normal voice), and Disney - like 20th Century Fox, own a lot of Subsidiaries dedicated to movies and TV. We're talking Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar, The Muppets Studio.... yes that's what it's called, and more. Unlike 21st and 20th Century Fox however, Disney have only started buying most of these studios while Fox has always been about owning different subsidiaries. It's interesting that Disney lasted so long on its own Live Action and Animated content.
There's also Viacom. Now tell me: How many people do you know that know a whole lot about Viacom? Not that many. Now what would happen if that things like The Godfather, Jackass, Spongebob Squarepants, South Park, Good Burger, Forrest Gump, Titanic, and Star Trek all to be ultimately produced by the same company? They'd think Nickelodeon and Paramount were the main companies in charge, well no, it was Viacom. Viacom's pretty much a cartoon evil company that - like 21st Century Fox, own a ton of things. But unlike Fox, Viacom is kind of unknown to the common audience as you rarely see their logo or name in an emphasised way in their products. But yeah with what Viacom own without the consumer even knowing, you can imagine they're serious competition for Fox.
There's also Sony, Time Warner, Comcast and more big contenders for the money fight. How does 21st and 20th Century Fox combat these? Army of Assassins... wait no never mind, I mean they have to make bigger, better and more universally popular products than the competitors. While Comedy Central's Futurama is an infinitely better show, 20th Century Fox's The Simpsons is ultimately the bigger Matt Groening money maker and that's why The Simpsons didn't have to end like Futurama did. And the same can apply to other things, 21st Century Fox in the end has to rely on what makes them money, which is 20th Century Fox, leading to their huge success. As much as I hate Family Guy, Vampires Suck, Ice Age movies and the fact that the Simpsons is still on, if it wasn't for the money that things like that get, I won't have my Sons of Anarchy, my Archer, new Planet of the Apes movies would either not be made at all or be of lesser quality as another company would have to make them, and Futurama wouldn't have ever been made in the first place.
So...yeah 21st and 20th Century Fox, love 'em or hate 'em their business has probably helped all of us in the end as we all must have some memories of 20th Century Fox movies and TV programmes. I hope I covered all you need to know about 20th Century Fox in this vlog and also how they operate as a business.
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