Media monoliths: are today's entertainment conglomerates controlling too much of what Americans read, listen to, and watch?Lackluster reviews of the movie King Arthur King Arthur: see Arthurian legend. didn't stop the ABC ABC in full American Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. television network. It began when the expanding national radio network NBC split into the separate Red and Blue networks in 1928. show 20/20 from devoting an entire segment to the Arthurian legend Arthurian legend, the mass of legend, popular in medieval lore, concerning King Arthur of Britain and his knights. Medieval Sources The battle of Mt. Badon—in which, according to the Annales Cambriae (c. last July, featuring multiple clips of the movie and interviews with the cast, director, and producer. ABC and Touchstone Studios, which made King Arthur, have the same corporate owner--the Walt Disney Noun 1. Walt Disney - United States film maker who pioneered animated cartoons and created such characters as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck; founded Disneyland (1901-1966) Disney, Walter Elias Disney Company. Given the nurnber of films Disney makes, and the number of TV and cable channels it owns, it would be nearly impossible for the company not to report on its own products. But to some critics, the King Arthur example raises a key question in an age of media conglomerates: Did ABC cover the film because it was deserving or because it would benefit Disney, its corporate parent? In recent years, media mergers have helped a handful of giant companies grow ever larger and exert more control over the movies and TV shows we watch; the music we listen to; the books, magazines, and newspapers we read; the Web sites we go to, and even the billboards we see while driving around town. THE NETWORKS Besides ABC, all three of the other major TV networks (NBC NBC in full National Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. commercial broadcasting company. It was formed in 1926 by RCA Corp., General Electric Co. (GE), and Westinghouse and was the first U.S. company to operate a broadcast network. , CBS (Cell Broadcast Service) See cell broadcast. , and Fox) are now owned by companies that also own studios, and many other media ventures: In addition to CBS and the Paramount Pictures movie studio, for instance, Viacom Inc. also owns cable networks like MTV MTV in full Music Television U.S. cable television network, established in 1980 to present videos of musicians and singers performing new rock music. MTV won a wide following among rock-music fans worldwide and greatly affected the popular-music business. , BET, and Showtime; book publisher Simon 8: Schuster; more than 180 radio stations; the Blockbuster video chain; and the biggest billboard company in the U.S. Some observers worry that as media companies continue to grow, they will have the ability to limit or dictate what the public sees and hears. Will consumers know whether a news show is focusing on a particular product--say, a movie or an electronic game--because it's newsworthy, or because the show and the product are owned by the same company? Will companies promote the viewpoints of their owners (whether liberal or conservative) to the exclusion of opposing views? "We get all of our information that we use to live our lives from the media--what food to eat, what movies to see, how we feel about issues," says Cheryl Leanza, formerly the deputy director at the Media Access Project, a consumer advocacy group opposed to media consolidation. "When only a few people at the end of the day decide what information that media distributes, it limits the ideas." Leanza worries, for instance, that Time magazine featured the Brad Pitt movie Troy on one of its covers last May not because the movie was worthy of attention, but because it was made by Time's corporate sibling, Warner Bros BROS Brothers BROS Benefits and Retirement Operations Section (King County, Washington) BROS Barnes and Richmond Operatic Society (London, UK) . studios. Both are owned by Time Warner, which also owns, among other assets other assets Assets of relatively small value. For financial reporting purposes, firms frequently combine small assets into a single category rather than listing each item separately. , cable channels like HBO Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO) A form of oxygen therapy in which the patient breathes oxygen in a pressurized chamber. Mentioned in: Ozone Therapy and CNN CNN or Cable News Network Subsidiary company of Turner Broadcasting Systems. It was created by Ted Turner in 1980 to present 24-hour live news broadcasts, using satellites to transmit reports from news bureaus around the world. ; magazines like Entertainment Weekly, People, and Sports Illustrated; America Online; and Time Warner Cable This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. , which provides service to 11 million homes. A Time spokesperson says the company's magazines never give Time Warner products special treatment, noting that the magazine has given covers to movies like Spider-Man, produced by Sony's Columbia Pictures, and Star Wars, distributed by Fox. And ABC Vice President Jeffrey Schneider says his network covers Disney movies like King Arthur only because programmers think viewers are interested; the fact that Disney gets free promotion from the segment is an afterthought, he says: "If you simply jam [corporate] synergy down people's throats, it won't be good for the show, and it won't be good for anyone." LOOSER RULES The large media conglomerate isn't a new idea: More than 40 years ago, the then-owners of the CBS TV and radio networks also had publishing, music, and even sports holdings, including the New York Yankees  Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism. from 1964 through 1973. But the trend didn't really catch
hold until the 1980s, when the federal government began loosening or
eliminating rules that limited the reach and power of media companies.
Before Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, for instance, the country's largest radio-station group owned 75 stations. Today, Clear Channel Communications Not to be confused with clear channel radio stations, which are AM radio stations with certain technical parameters. Clear Channel Communications (NYSE: CCU) is a media conglomerate company based in the United States. owns 1,200 stations in the United States, including all six commercial stations in the city of Minot, N.D. For the most part, however, consumers (and voters) had not given media consolidation much thought until 2003, when the Federal Communications Commission Federal Communications Commission (FCC), independent executive agency of the U.S. government established in 1934 to regulate interstate and foreign communications in the public interest. (FCC (1) (Federal Communications Commission, Washington, DC, www.fcc.gov) The U.S. government agency that regulates interstate and international communications including wire, cable, radio, TV and satellite. The FCC was created under the U.S. ) approved a change in regulations for the media industry that removed some of the restrictions on how many and what kinds of newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations that media companies could own. Some smaller media companies and a coalition of consumer groups sued to prevent the new rules from taking effect, and in June, a federal appeals court ordered the new rules to be scrapped because the FCC had not presented sufficient justification for changing them. Advocates for the big media companies, many Wall Street analysts, and even some media critics argue that huge media mergers might not be such a bad thing. They say that capitalism and competition ensure that Americans will always have access to the media they want. OUTDATED FEARS? The hit show CSI CSI Crime Scene Investigator CSI CompuServe, Inc. CSI Commodity Systems, Inc. CSI Commodity Systems Inc. (Boca Raton, FL) CSI Crime Scene Investigation (CBS TV show) CSI Christian Schools International , for instance, was originally developed by a Disney studio--Touchstone--for the Disney-owned ABC television network. But ABC decided not to purchase the show, and an independent studio took over development of the project for CBS, which now counts CSI, and its spinoffs, among its biggest hits. And when Disney came under fire last year for refusing to release Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 911, which was very critical of President Bush, the company agreed to sell it to another distributor not in the Disney family. The film was seen around the country. Proponents of media mergers also argue that old restrictions on the size of media companies--and fears of large media companies' power--are outdated. As recently as the 1980s, most Americans had access to just a single newspaper and a handful of television and radio stations. Today's consumers have access to satellite dishes and cable boxes, hundreds of television channels and radio stations, and hundreds of newspapers and everything else that is available in the free-for-all world of the Internet. "The reality is that ... there will continue to be hundreds of pathways into the American home in the average American city or town," wrote Kathleen Abernathy, an FCC commissioner, who voted in favor of loosening ownership regulations last year. That kind of logic doesn't comfort groups like the Media Access Project, which sued on behalf of a group of small broadcasters to stop the FCC changes. Simply counting channels, Leanza argues, is no guarantee of a fair playing field. "We need to remember who owns the channels," she says. "Just because you have more channels doesn't mean you have more views." FOLLOWING THE STORY The debate will go on. Given the results of the November elections, the Republican-controlled FCC is likely to take another crack at writing rules favoring media consolidation, says Philip Napoli, a media studies professor at New York's Fordham University. If you want to follow the story, according to Napoli, you'll probably have to rely on print media and Internet sites, since broadcast media rarely cover themselves. But it will be worth the effort, he says. "This is an issue that affects your ability to be confident that you're a well-informed voter, and your opportunities to be exposed to a variety of views, and to be developed as a person," he says. "It's really about what we want our country and our culture to be." American Idol * American Idol * The Cat in the Hat BERTELSMANN AG German: privately held European television networks & studios Producer of American Idol show Part-owner Sony/BMG Music Entertainment * Arista arista (ä·riˑ·st * Jive Gruner + Jahr Gruner + Jahr GmbH & Co. KG is the largest European printing and publishing firm. Its headquarters is in Baumwall, Hamburg, Germany. History Originally founded on Aug 1, 1948 as the Henri Nannen publishing house, Gruner + Jahr was created in 1965 from a merger by magazines * Family Circle * Parents Random House publishing * Bantam * Crown * Doubleday * Knopf 2003 REVENUES: $8.8 billion * Rush Limbaugh * Clear Channel Billboard CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS American: public company 1,200 U.S. radio stations (9% of American stations) Premiere Radio Networks Premiere Radio Networks is a radio syndication and preparation company based in the United States. It is currently the largest syndication company in the United States based on popularity of programming. * Rush Limbaugh show * Jim Rome show 103 concert venues worldwide 776,000 billboards/outdoor display ads worldwide SFX SFX Special Effects SFX Self Extracting (data compression) SFX SpreadFireFox (IRC) SFX Sound Effect(s) SFX Side Effects (counter-strike gaming clan) Sports Group represents athletes * Michael Jordan * Jerry Rice * Tracy McGrady 2003 REVENUES: $8.9 billion * Mickey Mouse * Desperate Housewives DISNEY American: public company TV Networks * ABC * Disney Channel * ESPN ESPN Entertainment and Sports Programming Network 10 TV stations Walt Disney Studios The name Walt Disney Studios may refer to:
* Disney * Touchstone Studios * Miramax/Dimension 72 radio stations Publishing * ESPN magazine * half of US Weekly magazine * Hyperion books 2003 REVENUES: $27 billion * The Apprentice * Friday Night Lights NBC UNIVERSAL American/French: public company (80% owned by General Electric, 20% owned by Vivendi Universal) 14 television stations * NBC * CNBC CNBC Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (artificial intelligence) CNBC Consumer News and Business Channel CNBC Congress of National Black Churches, Inc. * MSNBC MSNBC Microsoft/National Broadcasting Company (with Microsoft) * Tetemundo * USA Network Universal Pictures movie studio Universal theme parks 2003 REVENUES: $14.4 billion * * Blockbuster Video * MTV (Spring Break) VIACOM American: public company 18 UPN UPN User Principal Name (Microsoft Windows 2000) UPN United Paramount Network UPN Unión del Pueblo Navarro (Navarrese People Union) UPN Umgekehrte Polnische Notation TV stations TV Networks * CBS * MTV * BET * Nickelodoeon * Comedy Central Paramount Pictures movie studio Blockbuster Video (majority owner) Infinity Broadcasting (185 radio stations) Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster U.S. publishing company. It was founded in 1924 by Richard L. Simon (1899–1960) and M. Lincoln Schuster (1897–1970), whose initial project, the original crossword-puzzle book, was a best-seller. publishing 2003 REVENUES: %26.6 billion * AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. * CNN TIME WARNER American: public company America Online TV Networks * WB * HBO * CNN Time Warner Cable Movie Studios * Warner Bros. * New Line Cinema Magazines * Time * Sports Illustrated * People * Entertainment Weekly Time Warner Book Group * Warner Books * Little, Brown and Co. 2003 REVENUES: $39.5 billion * Destiny's Child * Sony PlayStation 2 SONY Japanese: public company Half of Sony/BMG music * Epic * Columbia Sony Pictures * Columbia * TriStar Sony Electronics * televisions * music players Sony Games * PlayStation 2 2003 REVENUES $62.3 billion * The Simpson * The New York Post The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and the oldest to have been published continually as a daily.[3] Since 1976, it has been owned by Australian-born billionaire Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and is one of the 10 NEWS CORP. American: public company 35 U.S. television stations TV networks * Fox * Fox news * FX * FoxSports DirecTV satellite TV provider [part owner] 20th Century Fox movie studio New York Post newspaper HarperCollins book publishing 2003 REVENUES: $17.5 billion Who owns Upfront? While reading this article, you might wonder: Who owns this magazine? Upfront is published under a licensing agreement between Scholastic Corporation and The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times Company, both public companies based in New York. Scholastic publishes more than 6,000 children's books, including the Harry Potter series; 34 classroom magazines, Grolier encyclopedias, and educational, software; and operates a number of book clubs and fairs. Its 2003 revenues were almost $2 billion. The New York Times Company publishes 19 newspapers, including The New York Times, The New York Times, The Morning daily newspaper, long the U.S. newspaper of record. From its establishment in 1851 it has aimed to avoid sensationalism and to appeal to cultured, intellectual readers. Boston Globe, and The International Herald Tribune International Herald Tribune Daily newspaper published in Paris. It has long been the staple source of English-language news for American expatriates, tourists, and businesspeople in Europe. , which is based in Paris; owns eight TV and two radio stations; and operates more than 40 Web sites. Its 2003 revenues were about $3.2 billion. Media monoliths media conglomerates control, more of what Americans learn about their world. Is this a problem or just the taws taws pl.n. Chiefly Scots 1. A whip or leather thong used to drive a spinning top. 2. A leather whip divided at the end into strips, formerly used to punish children: of economics at work TEACHING OBJECTIVES To help students understand the debate over media consolidation. That is, whether citizens' access to information could be compromised by the growth of conglomerates that own more and more media properties. BEFORE READING: Write "conflict of interest" on the board. Remind students that a conflict of interest comes into play when there are questionable ethical links between people and their jobs. For example, a teacher who grades her own child. Or a lawyer who writes a will in which he is one of the beneficiaries. Or a police officer who investigates his father's alleged crimes. One question for students to keep in mind as they read "Media Monoliths" is whether the sheer size of some media companies may inevitably drive them over the conflict-of-interest line. PATHWAYS: Refer to FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy's comment, highlighted on page 21. Do students agree or disagree with her about the number of pathways into the American home? Ask students to do some media research in their own homes. How many radio and TV stations--including cable and/or satellite--do they and their families have access to? Do they have access to different political views? Do they have access to the Internet at home? Where do they get their news? SELF-CENSORSHIP: Are students familiar with this term? Refer to the comment about companies' liberal and conservative views, on page 20. Ask students to try to put themselves in the shoes of a news producer who works for a TV network that is regarded as politically liberal (or conservative). Is it unreasonable for viewers of that network to wonder whether a news producer at the network might give more prominent spots to stories that support the company's views? DISCUSSION QUESTIONS * Why do you think Professor Philip Napoli says the November presidential elections are likely to encourage the FCC to write new rules favoring media consolidation? * Should the federal government break media conglomerates into smaller, competing companies? What would be the pros and cons pros and cons Noun, pl the advantages and disadvantages of a situation [Latin pro for + con(tra) against] of such a move? * How does exposure to a variety of views help one develop as a person? Peter Kafka, a staff writer for Forbes Magazine in New York, often writes about media and entertainment. |
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