Media Monopoly

Who owns the media?

6 companies. This isn't healthy for:

* Competition
* Diversity of viewpoint
* The middle class
* Profit sharing

Why is it tolerated?

 

this is how they control the masses the same corporate entities that own politics own ALL media outlets this story presented is factual,the media is controlled by political/corporate interests

 

How do you plan to deal with it? Six companies hardly constitutes monopoly.

 

well, it's still an oligopoly.

 

considering 10 years ago there were some 67 different companies and its down to 6 in all of the US media.............. 6 owners.....for every single radio station and television station and newspaper in america all of them are owned by 6 corporations yes that as close to a monopoly as your gonna get

 

I just scanned the list and didn't see NBC or any of it's branch stations on the list. I guess the author didnt put GE on the list cause it didnt fit with the theory of the entire media being owned by a select few. That's just what I found in 2 minutes of looking at it. I wonder what other information the chart chose not to tell you.

new: I just did a search and found some more stuff left out of the chart.

Media General-30 television stations, 30 newspapers and nearly 100 other periodicals.

Gannett-22 television stations, USA Today, etc.

Cox-owns over 78 radio stations, 14 television stations and 42 newspapers

Tribune-30 television stations, one radio station, 26 newspapers, 10 magazines

The Hearst Corporation-Hearst is one of the world’s largest magazine publishing companies, with 18 titles and over 130 international editions. Other Hearst holdings include 36 TV stations, two Baltimore radio stations and 12 newspapers

The New York Times Company-The New York Times Company owns 19 newspapers including the New York Times, The Boston Globe and The International Herald Tribune, as well as eight television stations, two radio stations, and the Discovery Times Channel.

Scripps-10 television stations, a number of television networks, and 19 newspaper publications.

Vivendi Universal-cable stations in Europe and record companies such as Geffen Records, Universal Records, and Def Jam.

The list goes on and on, but these are just the biggest names out there. It took me less than half an hour to find all this out. Come on people, do a little looking around before you post bogus pages like this.

 

As Grounded already pointed out, this is an oligopoly, not a monopoly (olig- meaning "small group" against mono- meaning "one"). Here is the definition of oligopoly:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=oligopoly

The question is, do we have any laws specifically pertaining to oligopoly (which is something I hadn't even heard of until I read Grounded's post). Any takers?

 

Well, if those oligopolies ever form a cartel, then there are laws that can deal with them.

However, I don't think that our current laws restrict oligopolies that much.

 

I didn't think so either, but depending on how they were formed there might be some anti-trust laws that pertain. Sadly I have neither the innate knowledge nor the motivation to research our anti-trust laws right now. Maybe tomorrow.

 

http://www.corporations.org/media/





In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called "alarmist" for pointing this out in his book, The Media Monopoly. In his 4th edition, published in 1992, he wrote "in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and operate 90% of the mass media" -- controlling almost all of America's newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. He predicted then that eventually this number would fall to about half a dozen companies. This was greeted with skepticism at the time. When the 6th edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. More than 1 in 4 Internet users in the U.S. now log in with AOL Time-Warner, the world's largest media corporation.

In 2004, Bagdikian's revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth.



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http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1498

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http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1406



A specter now haunts the world: a global commercial media system dominated by a small number of superpowerful, mostly U.S.-based transnational media corporations. It is a system that works to advance the cause of the global market and promote commercial values, while denigrating journalism and culture not conducive to the immediate bottom line or long-run corporate interests. It is a disaster for anything but the most superficial notion of democracy--a democracy where, to paraphrase John Jay's maxim, those who own the world ought to govern it.

The global commercial system is a very recent development. Until the 1980s, media systems were generally national in scope. While there have been imports of books, films, music and TV shows for decades, the basic broadcasting systems and newspaper industries were domestically owned and regulated. Beginning in the 1980s, pressure from the IMF, World Bank and U.S. government to deregulate and privatize media and communication systems coincided with new satellite and digital technologies, resulting in the rise of transnational media giants.


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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership
Third, concentration of media ownership often suggest the presence of media conglomerates. When a company owns many different types of media businesses, it is referred to as a media conglomerate. The seven current media conglomerates are Disney, CBS, Time Warner, News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, Viacom and General Electric. These companies together own more than 90% of the media market.


* Disney, "New" Viacom (and its former parent CBS Corporation, the former "Old" Viacom), TimeWarner, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, and General Electric together own more than 90% of the media holdings in the United States.[citation needed] Among other assets, Disney owns ABC, Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group, ESPN, and Miramax Films; CBS Corporation owns CBS, CBS Radio (formerly Infinity Radio)Simon & Schuster editing group, etc.; Time Warner owns CNN, Time, AOL, etc.; Bertelsmann owns Arvato, Direct Group, RTL Group (which owns M6 TV channel, VOX and Five), etc.
* Lagardère Group owns Hachette Filipacchi Médias, which is the largest magazine publisher in the world, 100% of Lagardère Media, 34% of CanalSat, and Hachette Livre (as well as parts in the European military aerospace EADS company).
* Vivendi owns Canal + Group.
* Edouard de Rothschild has 37% of French left-wing daily Libération since 2005, while arms company Dassault owns 82% of the Socpresse, which controls conservative Le Figaro, in which the Carlyle Group previously had 40%, as well as L'Express. Le Monde is owned by La Vie Le Monde, which also controls Télérama and other publications of La Vie Catholique, as well as 51% of Le Monde diplomatique.
* French Bouygues company owns 42.9% of TF1 TV channel, and is the parent company of Bouygues Télécom.
* Rupert Murdoch, the media magnate, apart of News Corp., also owns British News of the World, The Sun, The Times, and The Sunday Times, as well as the Sky Television network, which merged with British Satellite Broadcasting to form BSkyB; in the US, he owns the Fox Networks and the New York Post. Since 2003, he also owns 34% of DirecTV Group (formerly Hughes Electronics), operator of the largest American satellite TV system, DirecTV, and Intermix Media (creators of myspace.com) since 2005. See also Murdoch Newspaper List.
* Modern Times Group, quoted on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, owns Viasat TV network and Metro International, which is the world's largest chain of free newspapers, publishing 57 daily Metro editions in 18 countries. It was started as a direct competitor of 20 Minuten.
* UK Daily Mail and General Trust plc
* Bolloré, owned by Vincent Bolloré, who is Havas's main share-holder and president and UK group Aegis' first share-holder. Bolloré owns Direct 8 French TV channel.


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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002228040_sundaygoodman03.html



The media organizations in charge of vetting our images of war have become fewer and bigger — and the news more uniform and gung ho. Six huge corporations now control the major U.S. media: Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (FOX, HarperCollins, New York Post, Weekly Standard, TV Guide, DirecTV and 35 TV stations), General Electric (NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, Bravo, Universal Pictures and 28 TV stations), Time Warner (AOL, CNN, Warner Bros., Time and its 130-plus magazines), Disney (ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN, 10 TV and 72 radio stations), Viacom (CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, Simon & Schuster and 183 U.S. radio stations), and Bertelsmann (Random House and its more than 120 imprints worldwide, and Gruner + Jahr and its more than 110 magazines in 10 countries).
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http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Corporations/Owners.asp

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Just the Facts: What the Media Won't Tell You

* The media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) surveyed more than 300 major news networks' interviews during the build-up to the Iraq war. Less than 1% presented an anti-war viewpoint.
* FAIR’s review of ABC, NBC, and CBS nightly newscasts in 2001 found that 92% of all US news sources interviewed were white.

http://www.socialistworld.net/eng/2003/09/03us.html


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http://www.mediaowners.com/

 

First off, wikipedia is not a legitimate source. It has been proven time and time again to contain false information, especially on controversial topics.

I just listed 9 other major media outlets that focus on news sources. Looking through the lists of what these companies own, I'm not seeing that they own very many different news outlets. Until that happens, I'm not seeing a problem here. I don't find it to be a problem that Viacom owns Nickelodeon, MTV, CMT, BET, Comedy cental and other entertainment stations, because the only news source they own is CBS. NewsCorp only owns Fox and its branch networks. Time Warner only has CNN. Disney only has ABC. If you look at the list I posted above, these corporations don't even come close to touching the newspaper industry, so I find it very hard to agree with the posts saying that it is a oligopoly of anything more than entertainment. Until there is a monopoly of the news, I don't see a problem with a monopoly of entertainment.