Organizing entertainment acquisition and production in the TV business: flowing networks between markets and hierarchy

Only little is known about entertainment acquisition and production, especially the international format trade, even though it has a worldwide market volume of about 2.4 bn €. Format trade is a process along the stages of creating, distributing, producing or reproducing, and broadcasting entertainment programmes. Findings of a current empirical research project which was conducted by means of in-person-interviews with managers in Germany and the U.K., show that the particular organizations involved (creators, distributors, producers, and broadcast stations) are establishing structures which we call "flowing organizational networks": Depending on situational requirements and the respective stages of the format trade process, actors activate different organizational structures, e.g. markets, hierarchies, or networks. A case study will point out these structures of the international TV format trade.