A media conglomerate, media company, media network, media group, or media institution is a company that owns numerous companies involved in mass media enterprises, such as music, television, radio, publishing, motion pictures, video games, amusement park, or the Internet. The weekly magazine The Nation commented, "Media conglomerates strive for policies that facilitate their control of the markets around the world." [1]
A conglomerate is a large company composed of a number of companies (subsidiaries) engaged in generally unrelated businesses.
Some media conglomerates use their access in multiple areas to share various kinds of content such as: news, video and music, between users. The media sector's tendency to consolidate has caused formerly diversified companies to appear less diverse to prospective investors in comparison with similar companies that are traded publicly and privately. Therefore, the term media group may also be applied, however, it has not yet replaced the more traditional term. [2]
Critics have accused the large media conglomerates of dominating the media and using unfair practices. During a protest in November 2007, critics such as Jesse Jackson spoke out against consolidation of the media. [3] This can be seen in the news industry, where corporations refuse to publicize information that would be harmful to their interests. Because some corporations do not publish any material that criticizes them or their interests, media conglomerates have been criticized for limiting free speech or not protecting free speech. [4] These practices are also suspected of contributing to the merging of entertainment and news (sensationalism [5] ) at the expense of the coverage of serious issues. They are also accused of being a leading force behind the standardization of culture (see globalization, [4] Americanization) and are frequently criticized by groups that perceive news organizations as being biased toward special interests of the owners. [4]
Because there are fewer independent media, there is less diversity in news and entertainment and therefore less competition. This can result in the reduction of different points of view as well as vocalization about different issues. [6] There is also a lack of ethnic and gender diversity as a majority of those in media are white, middle-class men. [7] [8] [9] There is a concern that their views are being shared disproportionately more than other groups, such as women and ethnic minorities. [10] Women and minorities also have less ownership of media. [10] Women have less than 7 percent of TV and radio licenses, and minorities have around 7 percent of radio licenses and 3 percent of TV licenses. [11]
In the 2024 Forbes Global 2000 list, Comcast is the world's largest media conglomerate, in terms of revenue, with The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Discovery, & Paramount Global completing the top four. [12]
In 1984, fifty independent media companies owned the majority of media interests within the United States. By 2011, 90% of the United States's media was controlled by six media conglomerates: GE/Comcast (NBC, Universal), News Corp (Fox News, Wall Street Journal, New York Post), Disney (ABC, ESPN, Pixar), Viacom (MTV, BET, Paramount Pictures), Time Warner (CNN, HBO, Warner Bros.), and CBS (Showtime, NFL.com). [13] [14]
Between 1941 and 1975, several laws that restricted channel ownership within radio and television were enacted in order to maintain unbiased and diverse media. However under the Reagan administration, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, then led by FCC Chairman Mark S. Fowler, began a concerted deregulation over the years 1981 and 1985. The number of television stations a single entity can own increased from seven to 12 stations.[ citation needed ]
The industry continued to deregulate with enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Signed by President Bill Clinton on 8 February 1996, it was considered by the FCC to be the "first major overhaul of telecommunications law in almost 62 years". [15] In the radio industry, the 40-station ownership cap was lifted, leading to an unprecedented amount of consolidation. Since this period, IHeartMedia grew from 40 stations to 1200 stations, in all 50 states, while Viacom grew to owning 180 stations across 41 markets.[ citation needed ]
As media consolidation grew, some in the nation began to speculate how it might negatively impact society at large. In the case of Minot, North Dakota, [16] the concerns regarding media consolidation is realized. On 18 January 2002, a train containing hazardous chemicals derailed in the middle of the night, exposing countless Minot residents to toxic waste. Upon trying to get out an emergency broadcast, the Minot police were unable to reach anyone. They were instead forwarded to the same automated message, as all the broadcast stations in Minot were single-handedly owned by IHeartMedia. As the FCC reviews media ownership rules, broadcasters continued to petition it for the elimination of all rules, while those who are against this easing would often cite the incident in Minot as how consolidation could be harmful.[ citation needed ]
Canada, Australia, the Philippines, and New Zealand [17] also experience the concentration of multiple media enterprises in a few companies. This concentration is an ongoing concern for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the Philippine National Telecommunications Commission, and New Zealand's Broadcasting Standards Authority. Other countries that have large media conglomerates with impacts on the world include: Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, China, Mexico and Brazil. Media conglomerates outside of the United States include Fujisankei Communications Group (Fuji Television), Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, Hubert Burda Media, ITV, ProSiebenSat.1, Mediaset, Axel Springer, JCDecaux, China Central Television, Alibaba Group, ABS-CBN Corporation, GMA Network, MediaQuest Holdings, Radio Philippines Network, Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Advanced Media Broadcasting System, People's Television Network, Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation, Presidential Broadcast Service, Viva Communications, Prasar Bharati, The Asahi Shimbun, Grupo Televisa, TV Azteca, Grupo Imagen, Grupo Globo, Baidu, GMM Grammy and Bertelsmann. [18]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction over the areas of broadband access, fair competition, radio frequency use, media responsibility, public safety, and homeland security.
Warner Media, LLC was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned by AT&T. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City.
There are several types of mass media in the United States: television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, and web sites. The U.S. also has a strong music industry. New York City, Manhattan in particular, and to a lesser extent Los Angeles, are considered the epicenters of U.S. media.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a United States federal law enacted by the 104th United States Congress on January 3, 1996, and signed into law on February 8, 1996 by President Bill Clinton. It primarily amended Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code. The act was the first significant overhaul of United States telecommunications law in more than sixty years, amending the Communications Act of 1934, and represented a major change in that law, because it was the first time that the Internet was added to American regulation of broadcasting and telephony.
Concentration of media ownership, also known as media consolidation or media convergence, is a process wherein fewer individuals or organizations control shares of the mass media. Research in the 1990s and early 2000s suggested then-increasing levels of consolidation, with many media industries already highly concentrated where a few companies own much of the market. However, since the proliferation of the Internet, smaller and more diverse new media companies maintain a larger share of the overall market.
Major film studios are production and distribution companies that release a substantial number of films annually and consistently command a significant share of box office revenue in a given market. In the American and international markets, the major film studios, often known simply as the majors or the Big Five studios, are commonly regarded as the five diversified media conglomerates whose various film production and distribution subsidiaries collectively command approximately 80 to 85% of U.S. box office revenue. The term may also be applied more specifically to the primary motion picture business subsidiary of each respective conglomerate.
In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or time-buy.
In journalism, mainstream media (MSM) is a term and abbreviation used to refer collectively to the various large mass news media that influence many people and both reflect and shape prevailing currents of thought. The term is used to contrast with alternative media.
Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC is the general title of a series of cases heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 2003 to 2019. A media activist group, Prometheus Radio Project, challenged new media ownership rules put forth by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2002. In the first court challenge in 2004, the Third Circuit overruled an attempt by the FCC to raise the limits of media ownership within markets and relax cross-ownership prohibitions, and determined that a diversity index used by the FCC had been formulated inconsistently.
Access Industries, Inc. is a United States–based privately held multinational investment company which was founded in 1986 by businessman Leonard "Len" Blavatnik. Access Industries' focus is in seven sectors: biotechnology, entertainment, external funds, global media, strategic equity, technology ventures, and real estate. The group invests in the United States, Europe, Israel, and Latin America. It is headquartered in New York, with offices in London and Mill Valley, California.
A duopoly is a situation in television and radio broadcasting in which two or more stations in the same city or community share common ownership.
Home Box Office, Inc. (HBO) is an American multinational media and entertainment company operating as a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. Founded by Charles Dolan and based out of WarnerMedia's former corporate headquarters at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in the West Side of Manhattan, its main properties include its namesake pay television network Home Box Office (HBO), sister service Cinemax, HBO Films, and the international HBO Go streaming service. It has also licensed or maintained ownership interests in international versions of HBO and Cinemax, most of which are managed by Home Box Office, Inc. through sister division Warner Bros. Discovery International.
Media ownership in Canada is governed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), with regards to audiovisual media and telecom networks, as well as other agencies with more specific jurisdiction, in the case of non-broadcast media—like the Competition Bureau, with regards to competition matters and Department of Canadian Heritage regarding foreign investment in the cultural sector. The CRTC implements the policies of the Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act within Canada but, because its jurisdiction is limited to these, does not regulate the ownership of newspapers or non-audiovisual Internet activity. They have taken press and non-audiovisual Internet activity into consideration in deciding on broadcasting matters. Thus far, the CRTC has undertaken very little regulation of Internet-based audiovisual programming.
The Media Access Project was a non-profit group that promoted the public's interest before Congress and the US court system. MAP grew out of a 1960s lawsuit against the United Church of Christ and was eventually formed in 1972 in order to advance the rights of the public wanting to participate in the democratic process. Some of their first cases involved two TV stations in Mississippi not catering to the African American Community, resulting in the stations almost being shut down. From that era and cases came the thought "that members of the viewing and listening public have the legal right, derived from the First Amendment, to participate in FCC proceedings." Their most common way of fighting cases was through lobbying. The group suspended operations on May 1, 2012.
Media cross-ownership is the common ownership of multiple media sources by a single person or corporate entity. Media sources include radio, broadcast television, specialty and pay television, cable, satellite, Internet Protocol television (IPTV), newspapers, magazines and periodicals, music, film, book publishing, video games, search engines, social media, internet service providers, and wired and wireless telecommunications.
Minority ownership of media outlets in the United States is the concept of having ownership of media outlets to reflect the demographic population of the area which the media serves. This is to help ensure that media addresses issues that are of concern to the needs and interests of the local population.
Dispersal of ownership is a standpoint that opposes concentration of media ownership and mergers of media conglomerates. This position generally advocates smaller and local ownership of media as a way to realize journalistic values and inclusive media public sphere in the society.
The history of AT&T dates back to the invention of the telephone. The Bell Telephone Company was established in 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell, who obtained the first US patent for the telephone, and his father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard. Bell and Hubbard also established American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1885, which acquired the Bell Telephone Company and became the primary telephone company in the United States. This company maintained an effective monopoly on local telephone service in the United States until anti-trust regulators agreed to allow AT&T to retain Western Electric and enter general trades computer manufacture and sales in return for its offer to split the Bell System by divesting itself of ownership of the Bell Operating Companies in 1982.
Radio homogenization is the shift to stations airing the same pre-recorded program material and central-casting via Internet or satellite.
Federal Communications Commission v. Prometheus Radio Project, 592 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with media ownership rules that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) can set under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The case dates back to the Third Circuit rulings from 2002 that have blocked FCC decisions to relax media ownership rules related to cross-ownership of newspapers with television and radio broadcast stations. In the present case, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in April 2021 that the FCC had not made arbitrary and capricious rulemaking decisions in the context of the Administrative Procedure Act, nor had the requirement to review minority ownership of stations under Congressional mandate as stated in the Third Circuit's ruling, reversing this last ruling and allowing the FCC to proceed to relax cross-media ownership rules.
Studies routinely find that the individuals appearing in mass media are disproportionately white, middle-class men between the ages of 20 and 60. ... the rapid consolidation of deregulated media companies makes it even less likely that companies and stations will be minority-owned today.