Information About Business Opportunities and Trends - Essay Example

20th Century Fox 10201 W. Pico Blvd. Century Los Angeles, CA 90035 (310) 369-1000 foxmovies@fox.com July 14, Mr. Rupert Murdoch Chairman and Chief Executive News Corporation 1211 Avenue of Americas 8th Floor NY, NY 10036 RE: Information about business opportunity/trend Dear Mr. Murdoch, 20th Century fox is United States of America’s one of the leading motion picture related studios. It was established in 1935 with the merger of Twentieth Century Pictures and Fox Film Corporation. The fox film corporation was founded by William Fox, who was a New York City based exhibitor, in 1915. He started distribution of films in 1904 and then he began producing films in 1913. In the year of 1915, William Fox shifted his studio to a location in Los Angeles and gave name to it as Fox Film Corporation. The company went through tough times in the period of great depression. After that period, they secured a merger with Twentieth Century Pictures which was established by Joseph Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck in the year of 1933. The merger took place in 1935 which resulted in the formation of Twentieth Century Fox. 20th Century Fox Film Corporation is an established name in motion picture industry. It has established itself as one of the major company in their industry not only in America but also throughout the world. The main products of the company are films and television production oriented work. In the early period i.e. in late 1930s as well as in 1940s of the establishment of the company, their business model concentrated mainly on producing westerns, religious epics, screen featured biographies, and also musical films. In the early period of their business endeavor, they attached themselves mainly with quite a few of the then famous directors like John Ford, e.g. well recognized films like ‘The Grapes of Wrath (1940)’. From then on, they went on producing quite a few important and landmark films in the subsequent years. They were the first to bring in innovation in their business model by bringing in cinemascope. Cinemascope is a mechanism which helped pictures to be projected on screen at a ratio of two and a half times wider than normal. Their business environment was always been quite competitive in nature. They have been a pioneer in quite a few new innovations in their business environment and business model like cinemascope. The Robe in 1953 was companies’ inaugural wide screen viewable feature film. Thus, they were the trendsetter in the utilization of wide screen as a method of displaying films in the theatres featuring motion pictures. Twentieth Century Fox can be credited with the fact that they were the studio which brought presently renowned Marilyn Monroe in to the limelight and stardom in the period of 1950s. The studio also brought into forefront two of the most famous and successful musicals in the 1950s known as South Pacific, The King and I (Encyclopedia Britannica Online, “Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation”). The company went through a break down period after their extremely expensive epic film ‘Cleopatra’ failed in the box office, in 1963. As a producer of the film, they had to suffer a big loss. After this period, the company went through a change in their business setup as Darryl Zanuck was brought back as the chief executive. After this change, the company produced the film, ‘The Longest Day’ in 1962 which helped the company to revive. After this success, they went on to further success with producing movies such as ‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘Star Wars’, which turned out to be hugely profitable films and a business venture on the companies part. In the year of 1981, the company was purchased by Marvin Davis and family who in the year 1985, sold the rights of the company to internationally known publisher, Rupert Murdoch. In the last decade, Fox has started to spread their business worldwide. In 2001, they became an international level distributor for the MGM/UA film releases. In 2006, they also became the global video distributor of MGM/UA publishing library (TheStudioTour, “20th Century Fox: Chronology”). In 2006, also they created Fox Atomic produces and also market featured theatrical movies with digital content which were brought into forefront targeting the age group of 17 to 24 years. This demography was selected for every media based platform. They have also provided the users with an opportunity to access the contents and also encouraged them to remix, make, and also share their individual creations. This provided the company with an opportunity to establish a connection with their clients and customers. This interactive option helped them to attract more innovative ideas from their customers. The company has also concentrated on a popular program called Simpsons which celebrated the 20th anniversary of running the show and also aired the 300th episode of the program in the year 2007. They have also released Simpson movies in 2007. The company is listed in the New York Stock Exchange. They have also ventured into launching television channel in the last decade as they launched National Geographic Channel in 2001. This has proved to a very profitable business decision and also has become one of the strengths of the company. The channel has captured the imagination of the global audience as it has spread far and wide and is telecasted in 147 countries of the world in 25 different languages. This has created a trend and also an opportunity for 20th Century Fox establishment, as they have diversified from their main strength area of movie production. In future, also they can look to continue with this trend and try to further strengthen their channel’s position in the global spectrum. They have also featured famous television series of American Idol. Also, they have through their news corporation, set up established sports series coverage in their network. In a recent development, they have started to focus on Asian market which has a huge prospect in future. They have created Fox Star Studios, which is created as a joint venture along with Star TV, an owned established part of News Corporation. In 2010, they have started with their first Indian movie venture by producing a movie called ‘My Name is Khan’. They have gained a huge success through this production. This business trend can provide them with huge opportunities in future too if they continue to focus on not only Indian film industry but also the entire Asian marketplace. They can do this by setting up a separate office in country like India where there is a massive craze for movies and also as the Indian film industry is also getting recognized globally nowadays with the success of movies like ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. They can look to associate themselves with such projects in future by means of producing such films. This would help them to further enhance their global image. They can also look to associate themselves with European market. The European market for movies and films is also a vast one. The movies made in countries like United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain are recognized almost every year in the Oscar Academy Awards in the category of foreign films. Therefore, there is certainly untapped potential in the European market which can be searched. This association with global cinema can make them a global brand along with it they can also learn from the existing film producing companies of these countries. This learning would help them to expand their horizon and also be ahead of competition from their fellow competitors like Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Warner Brothers, etc. This would also help them to establish a strong financial base from the earnings of the globally associated movies. 20th Century Fox has been able to get recognition for their work in recent years as they received awards at the HEW awards like ‘Retail Distributor of the Year’, ‘Overall distributor of the year’, and also ‘Rental distributor of the year’ in the year 2008 (20th Century Fox International, “About Fox). The home entertainment section also won awards in the marketing section for ‘Best Film Marketing (Blockbuster)’ for their association with Simpson movie. They have also been part of recent blockbuster movie Avatar which was co-produced by them along with Lightstorm Entertainment. This movie has given the company a real boost and also healthy return on investment. The movie was one of its kinds which featured 3D facility. In the present era of high definition television and LED facilities, the movies can be made keeping in mind these features. The global audience also wants to view film with such high picture quality viewing. They can also look to distribute their movies apart from present feature of DVDs with Blu-ray Discs. Blu-ray disc are of higher quality than the DVDs. The data space of such disc is around 25 GB for a single layer disc and around 50 GB for a dual layer disc. This can be help in keeping the contents of 3D movies much better. Thus, it can help 20th Century Fox to focus in future towards making more 3D movies. Therefore, the company can look to make the blu-ray discs available at a global basis especially in their new venture of Asian market. This would enable them to increase their market share and also to reach out to a much wider audience base with their movies. The company has successfully launched National Geographic television channel. The channel has been featuring programs in various aspects like science, history based, adventure, and culture oriented programs. These programs have been a huge hit throughout the world. The different assortments of programs have caught the imagination of the global viewer and thus it has been a success all over the world. The company can look to leverage the benefits of the success they are getting from the channel into more similar ventures. They can try out launching entertainment based channels focusing on modern day taste and preferences of the audience. They can look to telecast global cinema in their channel by featuring renowned movies from Asian countries as well as from European countries along with the Hollywood movies. This channel, if launched, will certainly have a huge audience base as it will feature movies for all age groups and also vast array of global audience. They can also try to associate themselves with reality based programs. These programs are also catching the imagination of the viewers worldwide and also gaining large amount of viewership and popularity. 20th Century Fox has always been a frontrunner in the field of innovation and learning and bringing into light new developments. Therefore, they can look to continue their successful journey in the future also by focusing on their strengths and looking out for always available opportunities in future. Sincerely, XXXXXXX References 20th Century Fox International, 2010. “About Fox”. July 14, 2010. Fox. Encyclopedia Britannica Online, 2010. “Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation”. July 14, 2010. Encyclopedia Britannica. The Studio Tour, No Date. “20th Century Fox: Chronology”. July 14, 2010. The Studio. Bibliography Miller, F. P. & Et. Al. 20th Century Fox. Alphascript Publishing, 2009. The Hollywood Reporter. 20th Century Fox: the first 50 years. The Hollywood Reporter, 1984. Thomas, T. & Solomon, A. The films of 20th Century-Fox: a pictorial history. Citadel Press, 1979. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation. 20th Century Fox: a news corporation company. Twentieth Century-Fox, 1996. ULCA, 2010. “20th Century-Fox”. July 14, 2010. Film and television archive. Read More