Mediaboss Marketing

Back in 1983, approximately 50 corporationscontrolled the vast majority of all news media in the United States. Today, ownership of the news media has been concentrated in the hands of just sixincredibly powerful media corporations. Thesecorporate behemothscontrol most of whatwe watch, hear and read every single day. They own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites.Sadly, most Americans don't even stop to think about who is feeding them the endless hours of news and entertainment that they constantly ingest. Most Americans don't really seem to care about who owns the media. But they should. The truth is that each of us is deeply influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded into our heads by the mainstream media. The average American watches 153 hours of television a month. In fact, most Americans begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long without watching or listening to something. Sadly, most Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and entertainment andthe ownership ofall that news and entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands each year.

The six corporations thatcollectively controlU.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal. Together, the "big six"absolutely dominate news and entertainment in the United States. But even those areas of the mediathat the "big six" do not completely controlare becoming increasingly concentrated.For example, Clear Channel now owns over 1000 radio stations across the United States. Companies like Google, Yahooand Microsoft are increasingly dominating the Internet.

But it is the "big six" that are the biggest concerns. When you control what Americans watch, hear and read you gain a great deal of control over what they think. They don't call it "programming" for nothing.

Back in 1983 it was bad enough that about 50 corporations dominated U.S. media. But since that time, power over the media has rapidly become concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people....

In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass medium and the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal. [I]n 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to twenty-nine. [I]n 1990, the twenty-nine had shrunk to twenty three. [I]n 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten and involved the $19 billion Disney-ABC deal, at the time the biggest media merger ever. [In 2000] AOL Time Warners $350 billion merged corporation [was] more than 1,000 times larger [than the biggest deal of 1983].

--Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), pp. xxxxi

Today, six colossal media giants tower over all the rest. Much of the information in the chart below comes from mediaowners.com. The chart below reveals only a small fraction of the media outlets that these six behemoths actually own....

Time Warner

Home Box Office (HBO) Time Inc. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. CW Network (partial ownership) TMZ New Line Cinema Time Warner Cable Cinemax Cartoon Network TBS TNT America Online MapQuest Moviefone Castle Rock Sports Illustrated Fortune Marie Claire People Magazine

Walt Disney

Link:
Who Owns The Media? The 6 Monolithic Corporations That Control ...