Mass Media Monopolies

As is known, there is a tendancy among corporations to merge, creating even larger corporations. In media, it has come to the point that five single companies control the vast majority of media. I don't think too many people would disagree when I say that corporations are largely looking for a profit, and are willing to do something not in the interest of the people to achieve it. You probably recognise all five corporations: Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bartelsmann Media, and Viacom. If you don't, you'll certainly recognise some of their assets.

Time Warner owns: CNN, HBO, Cinemax, Turner Classic Movies, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, The WB Television Network (though shared with Tribue Company,) AOL, Compuserve, Mirabilis, Mapquest, Netscape, Nullsoft, Time Warner Cable, Time Warner Book Group, TIME Magazine, People Magazine, Sports Illlustrated Magazine, MAD Magazine, 'Fortune, Money' Magazine, Warner Bros., New Line Cinema, Castle Rock Entertainment, the Atlanta Braves, DC Comics, Rhino Entertainment, Turner Entertainment, and various other channels and magazines.

Disney owns: ABC Radio & TV, ESPN Radio, Radio Disney, ABC Family, abc1, ESPN, Disney Channel, Toon Disney, SoapNet, Lifetime, with partial ownership of A&E Network, History Channel, Biography Channel, E!, and HBO Latin America, the magazines Los Angeles Magazine, Discover, Us Weekly, and many Disney-themed magazines, Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group, Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Feature Animation, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Caravan Pictures, Miramax Films, Dimension Films, Walt Disney Records, Hollywood Records, Mammoth Records, Lyric Street Records, Disney Theatrical, the Disney Book Group of Hyperion Books, Miramax Books, ESPN Books, ABC Daytime Press, Hyperion East, Hyperion Audiobooks, Hyperion Books for Children, Jump at the Sun, Michael DiCapua Books, Disney Press, and Disney Editions, the Go.com web portal, Infoseek, Movies.com, 26 other radio stations, 10 other television stations, Disneyland Resorts in California, Florida, France, and China, and dozens of hotels and resorts.

Murdoch's News Corporation owns: HarperCollins Book Publishing Company, ReganBooks, Zondervan Christian Book Publisher, over a dozen Australian newspapers, several UK newspapers, one in Fiji, one in Papua New Guinea, the US tabloid 'New York Post,' InsideOut Magazine, SmartSource magazine, TV Guide Magazine (partial ownership,) Weekly Standard Magazine, Festival Mushroom Records, half of the National Rugby League in Australia and New Zealand, the majority of the Bribane Broncos, the Melbourne Storm, and the North Queensland Cowboys, a fifth of the New York Knicks and New York Rangers, two fifths of the Staples Center, and 9.8% of the Los Angeles Lakers, 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, Fox Television Studios, Fox Studios in Australia, Sydney, New South Wales, Baja, Rosarito, and Baja California, the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox Television Stations Group, parts of BSkyB, DirecTV Group, Hughes Network Systems, DirectWay, Foxtel, Sky Italia, and Star TV, Fox Movie Channel, Fox News Channel, Fox Sports Net, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports [in Spanish,] FX Networks, National Geographic Channel, SPEED Channel, MySpace, IGN, News.com.au, and NDS.

Bertelsmann Media owns but six others, but they are rather large. They own RTL Group, Gruner & Jahr (largest European magazine publisher, second in the world,) Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG,) Random House (largest trade book publisher,) Direct Group (largest book and music club group,) and Arvato (an international media service provider.)

Viacom owns: Infinity Broadcasting, Metro Networks, MTVi Group, CBS Internet Group, Nickelodeon Online, BET.com, Contentvile (partial,) Neopets, SportsLine.com, Paramount Pictures, MTV Films, Nickelodeon Movies, Republic Pictures, United International Pictures (partial,) Paramount Parks, The Free Press, MTV Books, Nickelodeon Books, Simon & Schuster, Pocket Books, Scribner, Touchstone, CBS, UPN, MTV, Nickelodeon/Nick At Nite, TV Land, CMT, Spike TV, Paramount Comedy, VH1, Noggin/The N, Showtime Networks, Showtime, The Movie Channel, Sundance CHannel (joint with NBC and Robert Redford,) FLIX, SET Pay-Per-View, BET, Comedy Central, TMF, VIVA, Paramount Television, Spelling Entertainment Group, Big Ticket Television, Viacom Productions, King World Productions, CBS Productions, CBS Broadcast International, Eyemark Entertainment, CBS Paramount International Television, 17 CBS-affiliated stations, 19 UPN-affiliated stations, the WB affiliate WTCN, the Azteca America affiliate WWHB, and the independant station of KCAL.

Now, if you were to spent a few hours to research the further holdings of each of these, I imagine you'd be hard pressed to find much that isn't ultimately owned by these five corporations. These corporations exert immense control over what it is we see, and they do it for profit. What is important may not be what sells, so they may air something else to up their profits. Important matters have a tendancy to be overlooked when there is something more popular to be heard, (say, the trial of a celebrity such as Michael Jackson,) and many people hear of nothing else because the interests of these Big Five are felt throughout a great majority of all media.

It was said during the founding years of America, that to make the nation work, there must be true freedom of the press. What we have is not truly a free press. Mass media has caused the majority of us to become blind to important issues by only putting sensationalist stories on their front pages and between their commercials. I cannot remember a single time that I've seen an article that wasn't sensationalist as the featured story on the televised news nor on the front page of a newspaper. How is this at all acceptable? News should be in the interests of the people, not a cash cow for an elite few.