Click me
Transcribed

Media Consolidation: The Illusion of Choice

NEWS! Media Consolidation: THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE Media has never been more consolidated. 6 media giants now control a staggering 90% of what we read, watch, or listen to. CONSOLIDATION 1983 2011 In 1983, 90% of American media was owned by 50 In 2011, that same 90% is companies controlled by 6 companies THESE SIX COMPANIES ARE: WB GE NEWS- DISNEY VIACOM TIME CBS CORP Notable Notable WARNER Notable Notable Properties: Properties: Properties: Notable Properties: Notable Properties: ABC MTV Properties: SHOWTIME COMCAST ESPN NICK JR CNN SMITHSONIAN NBC FOX CHANNEL PIXAR BET НВО UNIVERSAL WALL STREET NFL.COM PICTURES JOURNAL MIRAMAX CMT AOL JEOPARDY FOCUS NEW YORK MARVEL PARAMOUNT WARNER FEATURES POST STUDIOS PICTURES BROS 60 MINUTES 232 MEDIA EXECUTIVES CONTROL THE INFORMATION DIET OF 277 MILLION AMERICANS That's 1 media exec to 850,000 subscribers An audience the size of San Francisco TOTAL 2010 REVENUE FOR THE BIG SIX WAS $275.9 BILLION That's $36 billion more ... enough to buy every ... and 5x the government than Finland's GDP... NFL team 12 times... bailout of General Motors TELEVISION The Big Six control 70% of your cable 3,762 business contribute 30% Comcast's NBC merger guarantees: Control of 1 of every 5 Monopoly of 11 U.S. markets hours of television like NYC & Chicago NEWSI 3 NEWS CNN TIME HUFF POST 178 MILLION UNIQUE USERS READ TIME WARNER NEWS EVERY MONTH That's 2x Digg, Tumblr ... and also almost 3x and Reddit, combined... Google News The Sun Wall Street Journal The Australian NEWS CORP OWNS THE TOP NEWSPAPER ON 3 CONTINENTS In 2010, they avoided $875 m in U.S. taxes Enough to double ... or fund NPR for FEMA's budget... 40 years 4 RADIO In 1995, The FCC forbade companies to own over 40 stations yet CLEAR CHANNEL OWNS 1,200 STATIONS In Minot, ND they own every station Everywhere else in the United States, 80% OF STATIONS' PLAYLISTS MATCH "Mrs. Robinson" has aired 6 million times THAT'S 32 YEARS OF BACK-TO-BACK, NON-STOP PLAY Listening to Still listening to "Mrs. Robinson" "Mrs. Robinson" for the first time 32 years later Age 3 Age 35 MOVIES The Big Six's box office sales hit $7 billion in 2010 THAT'S 2X THE BOX OFFICE SALES OF THE NEXT 140 STUDIOS $7 billion $3.5 billion MERGERS AOL SPENT $124 BILLION TO BUY TIME WARNER IN 2001 That's 6x what Congress funded to rebuild Iraq Enabled by FCC deregulation and a decades-long orgy of mergers and acquisitions, these 6 giants dominate our media landscape. Until regulations return, (or they buy each other out of existence) they will continue to control 90% of everything Americans see, hear and consider important. END Brought to you by FRUGAL DAD Sources: http://www.globalissues.org/article/159/media-conglomerates-mergers-concentration-of-ownership 3 http://www.bizcompare.com/industries/industry-research-reports/TV-Stations_1569/Averaged from a Seattle basic cable package http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/experts-misunderestimate-our-traffic.html http://www.pressreference.com/Sw-Ur/United-States.html http://siteanalytics.compete.com/cnn.com/ http://www.newscorp.com/operations/newspapers.html http://www.einfopedia.com/world-top-ten-most-circulated-newspapers.php http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/15/how-rupert-murdoch-s-money-helps-him-makes-friends.html http://www.newscorp.com/Report2010/letter._to_stockholders.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/201/10/19/rupert-murdoch-corporate-tax-panama-trade-dealn_1018600.html http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-08-30/news/30114105_1_disaster-aid-fema-disaster-victims 13 http://www.npr.org/about/aboutnpr/publicradiofinances.html http://faculty.msb.edu/homak/homahelpsite/webhelp/Clear_Channel-_Single _Voice_in_Minothtm http://futureofmusic.org/press/press-releases/radio-station-ownership-consolidation-shown-harm-musicians-and- public-says-fmc http://www.bmi.com/news/entry/232893 http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2010&p=htm http://www.epmcom.com/public/2472print.cfm http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Games_Vancouver_2010/ Factsheet_Vancouver_legacy_February_2011_eng.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFLattendance http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid-aJhRiwHzwEDg

Media Consolidation: The Illusion of Choice

shared by kthorspear on Nov 22
2,900 views
10 shares
5 comments

Publisher

Frugal Dad

Category

Business
Did you work on this visual? Claim credit!

Get a Quote

Embed Code

For hosted site:

Click the code to copy

For wordpress.com:

Click the code to copy
Customize size