ral Electric media-related holdings include television networks NBC Universal and Telemundo, Universal Pictures, Focus Features, 38 television stations in the U.S., and cable networks such as MSNBC, Bravo and the Sci Fi Channel.
Time Warner 2005 revenues: $43.7 billion
Time Warner is the largest media conglomerate in the world, with holdings including The WB Television Network, CNN, HBO, Cinemax, Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, America Online, MapQuest, Moviefone, Netscape, Warner Bros. Pictures, Castle Rock, and New Line Cinema, over 150 magazines such as Time, Cooking Light, Marie Claire and People, and the Atlanta Braves baseball team.
Walt Disney Company 2005 revenues: $31.9 billion
The Walt Disney Company owns the ABC Television Network, numerous cable networks including ESPN, The Disney Channel, SOAPnet, A&E and Lifetime, 72 radio and 10 television stations, music and book publishing companies, production companies such as Touchstone, Miramax and Walt Disney Pictures, and six theme parks around the world.
Vivendi Universal S.A. 2005 revenues: $25.1 billion
Vivendi owns cable stations in Europe and record companies such as Geffen Records, Universal Records, and Def Jam.
News Corporation 2005 revenues: $23.9 billion
News Corporation, one of the largest media conglomerates in the world, owns The Fox Broadcasting Company, television and cable networks such as Fox, National Geographic and FX, 37 television stations, print publications including The New York Post and TVGuide, book publisher HarperCollins, film production companies 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures and Blue Sky Studios, and the National Rugby League.
Bertelsmann AG 2005 revenues: $22.2 billion
Bertelsmann AG, one of the world’s largest media companies, owns holdings in Europe and North America, including: book publisher Random House, radio and cable TV owner RTL Group, music publisher Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and print publisher Gruner+Jahr.
CBS Corporation 2005 revenues: $14.5 billion
CBS Corporation owns the CBS Television Network, UPN, Showtime, book publisher Simon & Schuster, 41 television stations, Infinity (now CBS) Radio, Inc., and theme parks such as Paramount’s Kings Dominion.
Viacom 2005 revenues: $9.8 billion
Before splitting off CBS Corporation, Viacom was one of the largest media companies in the world. The new Viacom is also large, with holdings including Music Television, Nickelodeon, VH1, BET, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures, Paramount Home Entertainment and publishing company Famous Music.
Top Owners in Different Areas
Top Movie Companies
Rank Company 2006 Box Office Gross
1 Sony & MGM/UA $1,469,097,728
2 The Walt Disney Company $1,278,391,029
3 20th Century Fox (News Corp.) $1,192,477,646
4 Warner Brothers/New Line $1,005,414,485
5 NBC/Universal (GE Co.) $932,864,129
6 Paramount Pictures (Viacom Inc.)$823,083,583
7 Lionsgate $246,947,250
Top Music Companies
Rank Company 2006 Albums Sold
1 Universal Music Group (Vivendi) 143,017,000
2 SonyBMG Sales Enterprise 123,036,000
3 Warner Music Group 86,038,000
4 EMI Music (EMI Group) 46,076,000
Top 10 Pay TV Programming Companies
Rank Company 2006 Average Primetime Viewers
1 USA Network (General Electric Co.) 1,972,000
2 The Disney Channel 1,927,000
3 TNT (Time Warner Inc.) 1,866,000
4 ESPN (The Walt Disney Company) 1,500,000
5 Lifetime Television 1,233,000
6 Turner Broadcasting System 1,225,000
7 Cartoon Network (Time Warner Inc.) 1,222,000
8 Nickelodeon (Viacom Inc.) 1,210,000
9 Fox News Channel (News Corp.) 1,127,000
10 FX (News Corp.) 935,000
Top Ten Newspaper Owners
Rank Company 2006 M-F Subscribers
1 Gannett Company, Inc. 7,343,114
2 Tribune Company 3,343,824
3 The McClatchy Company 3,290,143
4 Advance Publications, Inc. 2,671,639
5 MediaNews Group, Inc. 2,572,809
6 Dow Jones and Company 2,513,637
7 New York Times Co. 2,244,328
8 Lee Enterprises, Inc. 1,550,049
9 Hearst Newspapers 1,506,471
10 Scripps Newspapers 1,205,278
Top TV Station Owners
1 Fox Entertainment Group (News. Corp)
2 CBS Television Stations (CBS Corporation)
3 NBC Universal Inc (General Electric)
4 Tribune Company
5 ABC Inc. (The Walt Disney Company)
6 Gannett Company, Inc.
7 Hearst-Argyle Television Inc. (Hearst Corp.)
8 Belo Corp.
9 Raycom Media Inc.
10 Cox Broadcasting (Cox Enterprises Inc.)
Top Radio Station Owners
1 Clear Channel Communications Inc.
2 CBS Radio (CBS Corporation)
3 Entercom Communications Corp.
4 Cox Radio Inc. (Cox Enterprises Inc.)
5 ABC Inc. (The Walt Disney Company)
6 Citadel Broadcasting Corp.
7 Radio One, Inc.
8 Emmis Communications Corp.
9 Cumulus Broadcasting Inc.
10 Cumulus Media Partners LLC
Top Cable Owners
1 Comcast Corp.
2 Time Warner Cable Inc. (Time Warner Inc.)
3 Charter Communications Inc.
4 Cox Communications (Cox Enterprises)
5 Cablevision Systems Corp.
6 Bright House Networks (Advance/Newhouse)
7 Mediacom Communications Corp.
8 Insight Communications Co. Inc.
9 Suddenlink Communications
10 Cable One Inc. (The Washington Post Company)
Ownership: Twin-Cities area
Top Broadcast Owners Total
Clear Channel Communications Inc. 8
The Walt Disney Company 6
Minnesota Public Radio 4
CBS Corporation 4
Salem Communications Corp. 3
Newspaper Ownership
McClatchy: Star Tribune
Media NewsGroup St. Paul Pioneer Press
Gannett Co., Inc. St. Cloud Times
TV Ownership
WCCO Channel 4 Viacom (CBS Stations)
KARE Channel 11 Gannett
KSTP Channel 5 Hubbard Brodcasting
KMSP Channel 9 Fox/News Corporation
KMWB Channel 23 Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc.
WFTC Channel 29 Fox Television Stations, Inc.
Radio Ownership % of all radio broadcasting:
Clear Channel Communications Inc. 12.2 %
Walt Disney 8.7%
Viacom 7.0%
KTCZ-FM 97.1 Clear Channel Communications Inc.
KDWB-FM 101.3 Clear Channel Communications Inc.
KEEY-FM 102.1 Clear Channel Communications Inc.
WLOL 100.3 Clear Channel Communications Inc.
KQQL 107.9 Clear Channel Communications Inc.
KFXN 690.0 Clear Channel Communications Inc.
KYSM-FM 103.5 Clear Channel Communications Inc.
KFAN 1,130.0 Clear Channel Communications Inc.
WXPT 104.1 Viacom Inc.
WLTE 102.9 Viacom Inc.
KCCO 950.0 Viacom Inc.
WCCO 830.0 Viacom Inc.
KXXR 93.7 Walt Disney Co.
KQRS-FM 92.5 Walt Disney Co.
WGVZ 105.7 Walt Disney Co.
WGVX 105.1 Walt Disney Co.
KDIZ 1440 Walt Disney Co.
WDGY 630.0 Walt Disney Co.
WLTE 102.9 CBS Corporation
KZJK 104.1 CBS Corporation
Concentration of Media Ownership: FCC 2003 ruling loosening ownership rules
On June 2, 2003, The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in a 3-2 vote, approved new media ownership laws that removed many of the restrictions previously imposed to limit ownership of media within a local area.The changes were not, as is customarily done, made available to the public for a comment period. Two commissioners requested this public comment period (the same two who voted against the changes) and their requests were denied without justification. The news coverage of this event in the mainstream press was very low-key.
A few of the points included:
* Single-company ownership of media in a given market is now permitted up to 45% (formerly 35%, up from 25% in 1985) of that market.
* Restrictions on newspaper and TV station ownership in the same market were removed.
* All TV channels, magazines, newspapers, cable, and internet services are now counted, weighted based on people's average tendency to find news on that medium. At the same time, whether a channel actually contains news is no longer considered in counting the percentage of a medium owned by one owner.
(Thus it is now possible for two companies to own all of a city's 2 newspapers, 3 local TV stations, 2 national TV networks, and 8 local radio stations, (up to 45% of the media each) so long as there are other companies owning the shopping channel, the discovery channel, and at least 10% of other non-news outlets.)
* Previous requirements for periodic review of license have been changed. Licenses are no longer reviewed for "public-interest" considerations.
The Media Access Project issues the following statement in response to a news report indicating that former FCC Chairman Michael Powell ordered the destruction of a FCC report supporting stricter media ownership limits. September 14, 2006
In a USA Today Op Ed in 2003 on the FCC’s media ownership proceeding, then-Chairman Powell accused opponents of “substituting personal ideology for and opinion for the facts.” According to the Associated Press, however, when a study Powell ordered to prove deregulation did not hurt local news
coverage proved the opposite, Powell ordered the study not merely suppressed, but destroyed.
“It appears that it was Michael Powell, not the public, who preferred to make decisions based on ‘personal ideology,’” said Harold Feld, Senior Vice President, Media Access Project.
Powell allegedly ordered the study to counter mounting evidence in the FCC’s 2003 “localism proceeding,” showing that relaxing ownership regulation hurt local news. But the study showed just the opposite, proving the need for maintaining ownership limits rather than relaxing them.
There is no evidence that the FCC’s current Chairman, Kevin Martin, ever knew of this report – let alone participated in Powell’s effort to destroy it. Furthermore, Chairman Martin has shown a commendable willingness to open the ownership process to the public by committing to holding six public hearings
outside of Washington DC. At his confirmation hearing for another term yesterday, Chairman Martin confessed that he was no longer “comfortable” with the FCC’s decision to deregulate in 2003, and pledged to approach the new ownership proceeding with an “open mind.”
Nevertheless, the public deserves to know the truth about whether Martin’s predecessor tried to destroy valuable evidence about the most critical question facing the FCC then or now. We join with Free Press,
Consumers Union, and Consumer Federation of America in calling on Chairman Martin to set up an independent investigation into today’s allegations.
Michael Powell was absolutely right when he said we need to decide this issue on the basis of facts, not personal ideologies. Unlike Powell, we hope that Chairman Martin will share those facts with the public, no matter what they prove.
Media Access Project is a public interest law firm which served as counsel to the Philadelphia-based Prometheus Radio Project in its successful appeal of the FCC’s June, 2003 media ownership decision.
Excerpt: Why media ownership matters By Amy Goodman and David Goodman, The Seattle Times
As Phil Donahue, the former host of MSNBC's highest-rated show who was fired by the network in February 2003 for bringing on anti-war voices, told "Democracy Now!," "We have more TV outlets now, but most of them sell the Bowflex machine. The rest of them are Jesus and jewelry. There really isn't diversity in the media anymore. Dissent? Forget about it."
The lack of diversity in ownership helps explain the lack of diversity in the news. When George W. Bush first came to power, the media watchers Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) looked at who appeared on the evening news on ABC, CBS and NBC. Ninety-two percent of all U.S. sources interviewed were white, 85 percent were male, and where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican.
In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, there was even less diversity of opinion on the airwaves. During the critical two weeks before and after Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations where he made his case for war, FAIR found that just three out of 393 sources — fewer than 1 percent — were affiliated with anti-war activism.
Three out of almost 400 interviews. And that was on the "respectable" evening news shows of CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS.
These are not media that are serving a democratic society, where a diversity of views is vital to shaping informed opinions. This is a well-oiled propaganda machine that is repackaging government spin and passing it off as journalism.
For the media moguls, even this parody of political "diversity" is too much. So as Gen. Colin Powell led the war on Iraq, his son, Michael Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), led the war on diversity of voices at home.
In the spring of 2003, Michael Powell tried to hand over the airwaves and newspapers to fewer and fewer tycoons by further loosening restrictions on how many media outlets a single company could own. Powell tried to scrap 30-year-old rules that limited the reach of any television network to no more than 35 percent of the national population, and limits on cross-ownership that, for example, prevented newspapers from buying television or radio stations in the same city. The new rules would have allowed a broadcast network to buy up stations that together reached 45 percent of the national population.
The attack on the existing media-ownership rules came from predictable corners: Both Viacom, which owns CBS, and Rupert Murdoch's conservative FOX News Channel were already in violation, and would be forced to sell off stations to come into compliance with the 35-percent limit. The rule change would enable Murdoch to control the airwaves of entire cities. That would be fine with Bush and the Powells, since Murdoch is one of their biggest boosters.
Murdoch declared in February 2003 that George W. Bush "will either go down in history as a very great president or he'll crash and burn. I'm optimistic it will be the former by a ratio of 2 to 1." Murdoch leaves nothing to chance: His FOX News Channel is doing all it can to help.
It looked like Powell, backed by the Bush White House and with Republican control of Congress, would have no trouble ramming through these historic rule changes. The broadcast industry left nothing to chance: Between 1998 and 2004, broadcasters spent a boggling $249 million lobbying the federal government, including spending $27 million on federal candidates and lawmakers.
Music industry criticizes the concentration of radio ownership
Consumer Groups Applaud Bipartisan Bill on Network Neutrality
Consumers Union, Consumer Federation, Free Press, MAP and U.S. PIRG Support House Judiciary Committee’s Effort to Protect a Free and Open Internet
WASHINGTON – A coalition of leading consumer and public interest groups today welcomed the "Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006," a bill introduced in the House Judiciary Committee that would offer meaningful protections under the law for Network Neutrality – the guiding principle that ensures a free and open Internet.
The bill, HR 5417, is sponsored by House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.); Ranking Member John Conyers (D-Mich.); and Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Rick Boucher (D-Va.). In reaction to this new, bipartisan legislation, Free Press, Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, Media Access Project and U.S. PIRG made the following statement:
"We applaud the leaders of the House Judiciary Committee for taking this important step toward preserving a free and open Internet.
"From its inception, the Internet has prospered on a foundation of equality and neutrality, open to all and protected from discrimination by unnecessary gatekeepers. Network Neutrality is about preserving the Internet as truly free market that encourages competition and innovation.
"In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens have contacted Congress, urging their elected officials to protect Network Neutrality. Despite the intense lobbying and misleading advertising of the cable and telecommunications industry, Congress is beginning to heed the public outcry.
"A growing alliance in Congress recognizes that Network Neutrality is not a partisan issue, but one of grave importance to anyone who wishes to see the Internet remain an unrivaled environment for innovation, civic participation and free speech. We urge all members of Congress to support this important legislation."
Broadband as a Public Service
High-speed Internet access is fast becoming a basic public necessity — just like water, gas or electricity. But far too many Americans are finding themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide, unable to get connected or afford expensive commercial service. Community Internet is the answer.
Soon all media -- TV, telephone, radio and the Web -- will be delivered via the Internet over a broadband connection. New wireless and wired technologies allow local governments, public-private partnerships, schools and community groups to offer faster, cheaper and more reliable Internet service.
Hundreds of Community Internet and municipal broadband projects have sprouted up across the The major barrier to establishing Community Internet is not technological or economic. It's political.
The big telephone and cable companies are using their lobbying clout in Washington and the state capitals to outlaw municipal broadband systems, prevent competition and undercut local control.
Excerpt: Ryan Blethen, Times editorial: Media Biggies shouldn't be allowed to get bigger
The Federal Communications Commission's hopscotch through the rules that govern the press and media began last week with a hearing in Los Angeles. The commissioners should treat the restrictive rules like a porcelain vase filled with Grandpa's ashes, given the overwhelming response from the public at the hearing to keep the Biggies from owning everything.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin should not be surprised by the lopsided support for his commission to maintain rules that stymie huge media conglomerates from adding to their already massive portfolios (a disgusting term when talking about the press).
At least Martin showed up. His predecessor, Commissioner Michael Powell, did not attend any of the hearings set up by Democratic commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein in 2003, when the FCC rewrote the rules so the Biggies could buy anything without regard to readers and communities.
A Stanford professor was brought in for the Los Angeles hearing to bolster the cause of consolidation. Amazingly, he claimed media are more diverse than ever. Strange position for somebody living in the Bay Area, where two companies — MediaNews Group out of Denver and Hearst out of New York — control everything from San Francisco east to Contra Costa and south to Monterey.
Adding to the supposedly rich diversity in the Bay Area, MediaNews recently entered into some strange financial arrangement with Hearst.
The Bay Area is not an anomaly. Almost all American cities are saddled with distant owners that consider the local paper nothing more than a commodity.
Further evidence of the sad state of the press is the lack of coverage the first hearing received. The Associated Press covered it. So did the Los Angeles Times. That was about it. The Seattle Times surprisingly overlooked this important story. If there is an issue newsrooms should be concerned about, it is this.
If the big national papers and regional papers are not going to cover this issue as it progresses, I hope for a cyber-response along the lines of the Internet neutrality debate. A resistance of funny and cheap videos on YouTube and Web sites like www.stopbigmedia.com have been able to hold off the well-financed lobbyists who want telecommunication companies such as Verizon to be able to charge for faster Internet service.
From: John Nichols, Newspapers...and After? The Nation, January 29, 2007 http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070129/nichols
Crises like that of the Herald Tribune a half-century ago are now the norm rather than the exception. The newspaper industry is in trouble. Big trouble. In 1950 newspapers in the United States had a weekday circulation of 54 million. The circulation figures are roughly the same today, but the number of households has more than doubled. The Los Angeles Times's daily circulation was down 8 percent in a single six-month period in 2006, while the Philadelphia Inquirer was down 7.5 percent, the Boston Globe 6.7 percent, the New York Times 3.5 percent and the Washington Post 3.3 percent.
With drops in circulation have come declines in revenues--not because subscriptions provide all that much money but because media companies collect money from advertisers based on the number of homes they reach. Big advertisers long ago began shifting from the printed page to television, but now classified advertising, the meat-and-potatoes of local and regional daily newspapers, has begun migrating at dramatic speed to websites like craigslist.
What's happening is not just a temporary downturn. From 1990, when newspaper circulation peaked at 62.3 million, readership has been in steady decline. That might lead some to the casual conclusion that the Internet is the problem. But as veteran journalist and media writer Ben Compaine explains, "The heyday of newspapers was in the late nineteenth century, as expanding literacy combined with the development of the steam-driven rotary press, a market economy and wood pulp-based newsprint to make the mass-circulation penny press possible. From the mid-1800s to the 1920s, newspapers were the only mass-circulation daily news and information medium in the media barnyard. That changed with radio. It accelerated with television. The Internet is just the latest information technology that has added to the choices that consumers and advertisers have for obtaining and creating information." All true, but there is powerful evidence that the breaking point for newspapers may finally be coming.
Individual owners and powerful families--who often, though by no means always, settled for reasonable profits in return for the ego boost that went with putting out a quality newspaper--are exiting the stage. Increasingly newspapers are owned by the shareholders of national chains, who do not even know--let alone care about--the names of the papers from which they demand profit margins that are generally twice the average for other industries. Where a local family might have grudgingly accepted a weak quarter and a downturn in revenues, shareholders greet any softness on the bottom line with demands for draconian cuts. If a paper's current managers are unwilling to make them, investors look for more ruthless managers. Investors forced the breakup and sale, in 2006, of the venerable Knight Ridder chain, which owned Pulitzer Prize-winning newspapers like the Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Jose Mercury News and the Miami Herald. Similar pressures have forced the Tribune Company, which publishes the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Hartford Courant and several Florida dailies, to put itself on the block.
In recent months, Morgan Stanley has been pressuring the New York Times Company to alter its voting structure to reduce the influence of the Sulzberger family, which has opted for reasonably high--if often imperfect--journalistic standards over unreasonably high profits. The company's "current corporate governance practices deviate from what is widely considered to be best practice," explained Morgan Stanley Investment Management, owner of almost 8 percent of the Times stock, in asking shareholders to vote at this April's annual meeting in favor of its plan. The Sulzbergers shot back with a statement that the family "has no intention of opening our doors to the kind of action that is tearing at the heart of some of the other great journalistic institutions in our country." But the bosses at Knight Ridder once said much the same thing, and even if the Sulzbergers do manage to maintain one major newspaper in something like its current form, their statement is an acknowledgment that the broader trends are in the wrong direction.
How wrong? Under apparent pressure from Wall Street, the McClatchy chain just sold off what would normally have been a crown jewel among its holdings, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, at a rock-bottom price--less than half the $1.2 billion it paid for the largest paper in Minnesota eight years ago. "It was a drag on the bottom line, and we felt we would do better without it," declared McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt. The new owner, a private-equity firm that owns no other newspapers, is not expected to raise journalistic standards--even if the new overseers claim they'll maintain the Star Tribune as the great regional daily it has been for decades. "These buyers aren't in it for the love of journalism, or even for the influence that you get by buying a local paper," argues John Morton, dean of newspaper ownership analysts. "They are in it to make a profit by flipping the paper in five or six years, and the way to do that usually involves a lot of cutting in the meantime."
The Times, the Star Tribune and other great newspapers are not going to collapse soon. But their circumstances are evidence of the rapid, and often dire, changes transforming American newspapering into something less than it has been. Owners are moving to satisfy investors by slashing newsroom staff, pressuring unions to accept cuts, dumbing down coverage of important issues, eliminating statehouse, Washington and foreign bureaus (even the Wall Street Journal is getting into the act, with the recent shuttering of its Canada bureau) and generally sucking the life out of what were once considered public trusts--or by selling out to firms that will do the same thing.
The result has been a hemorrhaging of journalism jobs, as reporters and editors join manufacturing workers in the ranks of "disposable Americans." More than 44,000 news industry employees, at least 34,000 of them newspaper journalists, have lost their jobs over the past five years. Roughly 200 jobs have been cut at the Chicago Tribune over the past year. The Akron Beacon Journal, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Ohio daily that once set the standard in the state for investigative journalism, has slashed newsroom jobs by 25 percent. The San Jose Mercury News is in the process of shedding 17 percent of its newsroom positions. And deep cuts are being implemented in Denver, Pittsburgh, St. Paul, Philadelphia and dozens of smaller cities where traditional beats--labor, farm, federal courts--are disappearing as retiring reporters are not replaced.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism's current report on "The State of the News Media" notes, "In some cities, the numbers alone tell the story. There are roughly half as many reporters covering metropolitan Philadelphia, for instance, as in 1980. The number of newspaper reporters there has fallen from 500 to 220. The pattern at the suburban papers around the city has been similar, though not as extreme. The local TV stations, with the exception of Fox, have cut back on traditional news coverage. The five AM radio stations that used to cover news have been reduced to two. As recently as 1990, the Philadelphia Inquirer had 46 reporters covering the city. Today it has 24."
What that translates to is this: If we assume that Inquirer reporters work normal schedules, there are substantial portions of any given week when fewer than five journalists provide the primary coverage for a city of 1.4 million people. Major news stories are going untold. Vast stretches of a metropolis are being neglected. And the reporter-to-population ratio will soon worsen, as plans are implemented to cut up to 17 percent of remaining editorial jobs. More significant, as Ed Herman, professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and an expert not just on the media but on Philadelphia, told me last year, the sense of civic connection that should be nurtured by a great newspaper is instead fraying. "Newspapers were once thought to bring communities together. That's not the case anymore," he said, explaining, "People aren't stupid. They recognize when their local newspaper loses interest in them as anything but consumers of advertisements."
Learn more
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