Industries: Ownership and Control

1) Facebook acquired Instagram for the price of $1 billion in 2012. The reason behind this was to cancel out the competition by making money from both, and to also secure their dominance in social media for many years. It was hugely successful and brought a wider audience to Instagram by adding new features, and it eventually grew to have over 1 billion users.

2) The benefits for media companies of vertical integration includes them having the opportunity to earn more money for every stage of production. Having complete ownership over smaller companies means more profit that will over time all add up to equal a large amount of earnings which is beneficial to large mainstream companies.

3) The benefits for media companies of horizontal integration includes companies like these allowing themselves to obtain a larger audience and find different ways to earn money. This also reduces the amount of competition and has increased market share.

4) A subsidiary is a smaller company that is normally owned by conglomerates (major media companies). An example of a subsidiary includes Marvel Entertainment (a company which is hugely known around the world for its assortment of comics, comic-based superhero films, TV series and well-loved characters) which was bought by Disney.

5) Disney is an example of a media company which has used synergy to maximise their profit by making movies yet also releasing merchandise, theme parks, events and stage shows etc. relating to the movies. Disney also owns Pixar, the company that produced all four Toy Story films, and there are many theme park rides and merchandise based on them. Another example includes the promotion of the film 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' which is part of the Harry Potter series, based on the books by J.K. Rowling. The movie was promoted by AOL Time Warner, and adverts for the film were shown on HBO and the WB, both of which are/were subsidiaries of Time Warner. The soundtrack for the film was released on Atlantic Records, also a part of Warner Music. AOL's internet service offered merchandise, and ticket promotions tied to subscriptions for AOL's services.

6) Companies which are owned by Walt Disney include the following: 

• Marvel Entertainment
• Marvel Studios
• ABC Entertainment
• ABC News & Radio 
• ESPN
• Hulu
• Vice
• Viceland
• Pixar
• Dreamworks

as well as so much more.

7) Disney already owns a vast variety of different news, film and leisure companies. However, the media landscape is constantly changing as companies such as Amazon and Netflix attract viewers to new ways of viewing. Disney bought Fox in order to counter a down-turn in its pay-TV business and future threats from these rival companies. It benefits them because if they ever face competition with another rising company, they’ll always have backup well-known subsidiaries which gradually makes them even more powerful and enough to challenge the opposing company.