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Who Owns The 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.
MediaChannel's Media Ownership ChartThis is a handy graphic chart of who owns what. This page is one large images, so it may take a long while to load on
slower connections. Columbia Journalism Review's 'Who Owns What'Colombia Journalism Review provides a clickable list of the major media companies and their holdings. This web guide
demonstrates the exceedingly far reach of these companies. The Nation's 'Big Ten'Here's a clickable chart of the world's ten biggest media conglomerates. The 'Big Ten' shows that concentration of
media owndership isn't just a problem here - it's happening worldwide. The Incredible Shrinking Ownership GroupIn 1985, there were 50 companies who owned media outlets. The graph on this site shows that between then and now,
the number has dwindled to only six, and if the planned deregulation goes through it'll decline even further. Includes the
major media reform advocacy groups. FAIR's List of For-Profit MediaFAIR points out that most media outlets are owned by for-profit corporations, which by nature makes them more accountable
to the stockholders than the public interest. NOW's 'Who Controls The Media?'This easy-to-read chart breaks it all down - even down to which cable outlets are controlled by which conglomerates.
NOTE:
Looking at the impressive list of Media Reform Advocacy Groups that follows one should think
they should grant us an objective an unbiased reporting.
But this is not the case - on the contrary, there seems to
be a world wide "Conspiracy of Silence" regarding war crimes and crimes against humanity.
What is the reason for it?
Angst?
And who is responsible?
Please read the report:
Media Reform Advocacy Groups:
Media Reform Articles/Books:
Public Relations/Advertising/Commercialism
The Media Monopoly / Corporate Media Ownership:
Radio (low-power / microradio)
Television Media Reform / Cable Access
Internet / Open Access / Digital Divide
Independent/Alternative Media Advocates
Resources for Investigative Journalism & Reporters
Progressive Media Outlets:
Alternative / Progressive Book Publishers:
Where the (Mainstream) Media is...
Other Media Links:
Last modified: 28 December 2005
http://www.corporations.org/media/
http://www.actionpa.org/
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