Media of the United States consist of several different types of media: television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, and Internet-based web sites. The U.S. also has a strong music industry. Many of the media are controlled by large for-profit corporations who reap revenue from advertising, subscriptions, and sale of copyrighted material. American media conglomerates tend to be leading global players, generating large revenues as well as large opposition in many parts of the world. With the passage of the Telecommunications Actof 1996, further deregulation and convergence are under way, leading to mega-mergers, further concentration of media ownership, and the emergence of multinational media conglomerates. These mergers enable tighter control of information.[1] Currently, five corporations control roughly 90% of the media.[2][3] Critics allege that localism, local news and other content at the community level, media spending and coverage of news, and diversity of ownership and views have suffered as a result of these processes of media concentration.[4]
Theories to explain the success of such companies include reliance on certain policies of the American federal government or a tendency to natural monopolies in the industry, in a corporate media bias.
The organization Reporters Without Borders compiles and publishes an annual ranking of countries based upon the organization's assessment of their press freedom records. In 2013–14 United States was ranked 46th out of 180 countries, a drop of thirteen points from the preceding year.[5][6] On the future of Spanish-language media in the U.S., Alberto Avendaño, ex-director of El Tiempo Latino/Washington Post, claimed that “Hispanic-American” news coverage in the English-language media is “absolutely pathetic,” but he was optimistic, since every month, Latinos come of age so a social and demographic shift is inevitable.
The Washington Post on Monday, July 21, 1969 stating "'The Eagle Has Landed'—Two Men Walk on the Moon".
After being widely successful in the 20th century, newspapers have declined in their influence and penetration into American households over the years. The U.S. does not have a national paper. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today are the most circulated newspapers in the United States and are sold in most U.S. cities.[7]
The New York Times Building
Although the Times' primary audience has always been the people of New York City, the New York Times has gradually become the dominant national "newspaper of record". Apart from its daily nationwide distribution, the term means that back issues are archived on microfilm by every decent-sized public library in the nation, and the Times' articles are often cited by both historians and judges as evidence that a major historical event occurred on a certain date. The Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal are also newspapers of record to a lesser extent. Although USA Today has tried to establish itself as a national paper, it has been widely derided by the academic world as the "McPaper" and is not subscribed to (let alone archived) by most libraries.[citation needed]
Apart from the newspapers just mentioned, all major metropolitan areas have their own local newspapers. Typically, a metropolitan area will support at most one or two major newspapers, with many smaller publications targeted towards particular audiences. Although the cost of publishing has increased over the years, the price of newspapers has generally remained low, forcing newspapers to rely more on advertising revenue and on articles provided by a major news agency wire service, such as the Associated Press, Reuters or Bloomberg News[8] for their national and world coverage.
With very few exceptions, all the newspapers in the U.S. are privately owned, either by large chains such as Gannett or McClatchy, which own dozens or even hundreds of newspapers; by small chains that own a handful of papers; or in a situation that is increasingly rare, by individuals or families.
Most general-purpose newspapers are either being printed one time a week, usually on Thursday or Friday, or are printed daily. Weekly newspapers tend to have much smaller circulation and are more prevalent in rural communities or small towns. Major cities often have "alternative weeklies" to complement the mainstream daily paper(s), for example, New York City's Village Voice or Los Angeles' L.A. Weekly, to name two of the best-known. Major cities may also support a local business journal, trade papers relating to local industries, and papers for local ethnic and social groups.
Probably due to competition from other media, the number of daily newspapers in the U.S. has declined over the past half-century, according to Editor & Publisher, the trade journal of American newspapers. In particular, the number of evening newspapers has fallen by almost one-half since 1970, while the number of morning editions and Sunday editions has grown.
For comparison, in 1950, there were 1,772 daily papers (and 1,450 – or about 70 percent – of them were evening papers) while in 2000, there were 1,480 daily papers (and 766—or about half—of them were evening papers.)
Daily newspaper circulation is also slowly declining in America, partly due to the near-demise of two-newspaper towns, as the weaker newspapers in most cities have folded:
Year
Circulation
1960
58.8 million
1970
62.1 million
1980
62.2 million
1990
62.3 million
2000
55.8 million
The primary source of newspaper income is advertising – in the form of "classifieds" or inserted advertising circulars – rather than circulation income. However, since the late 1990s, this revenue source has been directly challenged by Web sites like eBay (for sales of secondhand items), Monster.com (jobs), and Craigslist (everything).
Additionally, as investigative journalism declined at major daily newspapers in the 2000s, many reporters formed their own non-profit investigative newsrooms. Examples include ProPublica on the national level, Texas Tribune at the state level and Voice of OC at the local level.
In August 2019 it was announced that New Media Investment Group had agreed to buy Gannett, and operations would continue under the Gannett rather than GateHouse name, at the Gannett headquarters but under New Media's CEO.[9][10] The acquisition of Gannett by New Media Investment Group was completed on November 19, 2019, making the combined company the largest newspaper publisher in the United States.[11] Immediately after the merger was finalized, all GateHouse Media URLs began redirecting to Gannett.com.
La Opinión is the most read newspaper website in the United States, reaching more than 6 million readers each month. It is the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the United States and the second-most read newspaper in Los Angeles (after The Los Angeles Times).
Thanks to the huge size of the English-speaking North American media market, the United States has a large magazine industry with hundreds of magazines serving almost every interest, as can be determined by glancing at any newsstand in any large American city. Most magazines are owned by one of the large media conglomerates or by one of their smaller regional brethren. The American Society of Magazine Editors sponsors the annual National Magazine Awards recognizing excellence.
The U.S. has three leading weekly news magazines: Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report. Time and Newsweek are center-left while U.S. News and World Report tends to be center-right. Time is well known for naming a "Person of the Year" each year, while U.S. News publishes annual ratings of American colleges and universities.
Two Mundos Magazine is a quarterly, bilingual (English/Spanish) lifestyle and entertainment magazine based in Miami.
It’s not a coordinated exodus for magazines in the United States but the transition from print’s primacy to digital’s that has started at the turn of the century.
Fireside chat on government and capitalism (September 30, 1934)
American radio broadcasts in two bands: FM and AM. Some stations are only talk radio – featuring interviews and discussions – while music radio stations broadcast one particular type of music: Top 40, hip-hop, country, etc. Radio broadcast companies have become increasingly consolidated in recent years. National Public Radio is the nation's primary public radio network, but most radio stations are commercial and profit-oriented.
Talk radio as a political medium has also exploded in popularity during the 1990s, due to the 1987 repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, which meant that stations no longer had to "balance" their day by programming alternative points of view.[citation needed]
A new form of radio that is gaining popularity is satellite radio. The two biggest subscriptions based radio services are Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio, which have recently merged to form Sirius XM Radio. Unlike terrestrial radio music channels are commercial free and other channels feature minimal commercials. Satellite radio also is not regulated by the FCC.
During the advent of the internet in the 21st century, internet radio and digital streaming services have been emerged. Among popular brands are Pandora, Spotify and iHeartRadio. Although, the recording industry also sees Internet radio as a threat and has attempted to impose high royalty rates for the use of recorded music to discourage independent stations from playing popular songs.
Nielsen Audio, formerly known as Arbitron, is consumer research company that provides ratings (similar to the Nielsen ratings) for national and local radio stations in the United States.
Digital Audio Broadcasting goal is to replace FM broadcasting and become the future of radio. Some industry experts are wary of this new transmission method. ... However, this method of transmission could benefit internet radio stations that want to develop local coverage and keep up to speed with FM radio stations.
Press photographers and film crews at Barack Obama rally, February 4, 2008
Ninety-nine percent of American households have at least one television and the majority of households have more than one. [citation needed] The four major broadcasters in the U.S. are the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), CBS (formerly the Columbia Broadcasting System), the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and the Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox).[citation needed] On August 13, 2019, CBS and Viacom officially announced their intention to merge, with the combined company to be named ViacomCBS. The merger was completed on December 4, 2019.[12][13][14][15] The company will have 50% interest in The CW.
The five major U.S. broadcast network logos
Several Spanish language broadcast (as well as cable) networks exist, which are the most common form of non-English television broadcasts. These networks are not as widely distributed over-the-air as their English counterparts, available mostly in markets with sizeable Latino and Hispanic populations; several of these over-the-air networks are alternatively fed directly to cable, satellite and IPTV providers in markets without either the availability or the demand for a locally based owned-and-operated or affiliate station.
The largest of these networks, Univision, launched in 1986 as a successor to the Spanish International Network. Its major competition is Telemundo (est. 1986), a sister network of NBC (which acquired Telemundo in 2001). Founded: 2009 Estrella TV is another Spanish-language broadcast television network.
Public television has a far smaller role than in most other countries. However, a number of states, including West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, and South Carolina, among others, do have state-owned public broadcasting authorities which operate and fund all public television stations in their respective states. The income received from the government is insufficient to cover expenses and stations also rely on corporate sponsorships and viewer contributions.
Robert Rodriguez directed the 1992 action film El Mariachi, which was a commercial success after grossing $2 million against an initial budget of $7,000 (before studio production costs) and launched his own cable television channel, El Rey thanks to advances in technology.
In the 20th century, the motion picture industry rose to become one of the most successful and powerful industries in the U.S. Along with other intellectual property industries, its relative importance to the American economy has strengthened as the importance of manufacturing and agriculture have decreased (due to globalization).[18]
Rise of the home video market (1980s–1990s)
The 1980s and 1990s saw another significant development. The full acceptance of home video by studios opened a vast new business to exploit. Films such as Showgirls, The Secret of NIMH, and The Shawshank Redemption, which may have performed poorly in their theatrical run, were now able to find success in the video market. It also saw the first generation of filmmakers with access to videotapes emerge. Directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson had been able to view thousands of films and produced films with vast numbers of references and connections to previous works. Tarantino has had a number of collaborations with director Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez directed the 1992 action film El Mariachi, which was a commercial success after grossing $2 million against an initial before-production budget of $7,000. In 2011, El Mariachi was inducted into the Library of Congress to be preserved as part of its National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film is further immortalized by Guinness World Records as the lowest-budgeted film ever to gross $1 million at the box office.[19] This was possible thanks to the explosion of independent film and ever-decreasing costs for filmmaking, changed the landscape of American movie-making once again and led a renaissance of filmmaking among Hollywood's lower and middle-classes—those without access to studio financial resources. With the rise of the DVD in the 21st century, DVDs have quickly become even more profitable to studios and have led to an explosion of packaging extra scenes, extended versions, and commentary tracks with the films.[citation needed] It’s likely that Blu-ray sales fractionally impacted the decline of DVD sales later, but the fact that DVD sales still outpace Blu-ray sales in 2019 it shows was not the real culprit. Instead, a combination of the Great Recession, a rise in customers buying Video on demand and digital copies of films and the launch of streaming services is what has caused DVD sales to decline more than 86% in the last 13 years.
Increasingly we are seeing families with tablet computer in cars, on vacation, while visiting Grandma, at the beach, in the airport lounge. It is the biggest expansion of the motion picture audience since the introduction of home video.
Nowadays, online streaming makes it possible to watch everything from live news and sports to classic movies to modern TV favorites in their own time, on any device. With the popularity of online streaming rising cable companies are having to extend offers to compete in this 655 billion dollar digital market.[20]
Virtual MVPDs are over-the-top live video streaming services that mirrored cable and TV Everywhere bundled services, priced at lower monthly rates than packages offered by traditional pay television system operators. Sling TV, PlayStation Vue and fuboTV were launched in 2015. DirecTV Now followed in 2016. and Philo in 2017. New York magazine has a Vulture’s streaming guide to the TV Shows and movies available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Hulu. The term "streaming wars" was coined to discuss the new era of competition between video streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, etc.[21]
The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. The network was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries and United Television; Viacom turned the network into a joint venture in 1996 after acquiring a 50% stake in the network, and subsequently purchased Chris-Craft's remaining stake in 2000. In December 2005, UPN was spun off to CBS Corporation when Viacom split into two separate companies.
CBS is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network that is the flagship property of the CBS Entertainment Group division of ViacomCBS. The company is headquartered at the CBS Building in New York City with major production facilities and operations in New York City and Los Angeles.
Canada has a well-developed media sector, but its cultural output – particularly in English films, television shows, and magazines – is often overshadowed by imports from the United States. Television, magazines, and newspapers are primarily for-profit corporations based on advertising, subscription, and other sales-related revenues. Nevertheless, both the television broadcasting and publications sectors require a number of government interventions to remain profitable, ranging from regulation that bars foreign companies in the broadcasting industry to tax laws that limit foreign competition in magazine advertising.
Gannett Co., Inc. is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. It is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation.
WHEC-TV, virtual and VHF digital channel 10, is an NBC-affiliated television station licensed to Rochester, New York, United States. The station is owned by Saint Paul, Minnesota-based Hubbard Broadcasting. WHEC-TV's studios are located on East Avenue in Downtown Rochester, and its transmitter is located on Pinnacle Hill in Brighton, New York.
CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation, and consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s and Infinity Broadcasting since the 1970s. The broadcasting company was sold to Entercom on November 17, 2017.
WCCO-TV, virtual channel 4, is a CBS owned-and-operated television station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States and serving the Twin Cities television market. The station is owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of ViacomCBS. WCCO-TV's studios are located on South 11th Street along Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis, and its transmitter is located at the Telefarm complex in Shoreview, Minnesota.
WUPA, virtual channel 69, is a CW owned-and-operated television station licensed to Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The station is owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of ViacomCBS. WUPA's studios are located on Northeast Expressway (I-85) in unincorporated DeKalb County, and its transmitter is located near Shepherds Lane and Arnold Avenue in the Woodland Hills section of northeastern Atlanta.
KMOV, virtual channel 4, is a CBS-affiliated television station licensed to St. Louis, Missouri, United States. The station is owned by the Meredith Corporation. KMOV's studios are located at the Gateway Tower on Memorial Drive in Downtown St. Louis, near the Gateway Arch, and its transmitter is located in Lemay. On cable, the station is available on Charter Spectrum channel 4 in both standard and high definition, and on AT&T U-verse channels 4 (SD) and 1004 (HD).
Mainstream media 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 which may contain content with more dissenting thought at variance with the prevailing views of mainstream sources.
WHAS-TV, virtual and VHF digital channel 11, is an ABC-affiliated television station licensed to Louisville, Kentucky, United States. The station is owned by Tegna Inc. WHAS-TV's studios are located on West Chestnut Street in Downtown Louisville, and its transmitter is located in rural northeastern Floyd County, Indiana. On cable, the station is available on Spectrum channel 4 in both standard and high definition.
New York City has been called the media capital of the world. The media of New York City are internationally influential and include some of the most important newspapers, largest publishing houses, biggest record companies, and most prolific television studios in the world. It is a major global center for the book and magazine publican, music, newspaper, and television industries.
WWL-TV, virtual channel 4, is a CBS-affiliated television station licensed to New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The station is owned by Tegna Inc., as part of a duopoly with Slidell-licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate WUPL. The two stations share studios on Rampart Street in the historic French Quarter district and transmitter facilities on Cooper Road in Terrytown, Louisiana.
KSLA, virtual channel 12, is a CBS-affiliated television station licensed to Shreveport, Louisiana, United States and also serving Texarkana, Texas. The station is owned by Gray Television. KSLA's studios are located on Fairfield Avenue and Dashiel Street in central Shreveport, and its transmitter is located near St. Johns Baptist Church Road in rural northern Caddo Parish.
The CW Television Network is an American English-language free-to-air television network that is operated by The CW Network, LLC, a limited liability joint venture between the CBS Entertainment Group unit of ViacomCBS; and AT&T, whose WarnerMedia subsidiary is the parent company of Warner Bros., former majority owner of The WB. The network's name is an abbreviation derived from the first letters of the names of its two parent corporations.
As the world's traditional automotive center, Detroit, Michigan, is an important source for business news. The Detroit media are active in the community through such efforts as the Detroit Free Press high school journalism program and the Old Newsboys' Goodfellow Fund of Detroit. Wayne State University offers a widely respected journalism program.
Home Box Office, Inc. (HBO) is an American multinational media and entertainment company operating as a subsidiary of WarnerMedia, controlled by AT&T, and managed through its WarnerMedia Entertainment division. Founded by Charles Dolan and based in New York City, its main properties include its namesake pay television network HBO, sister service Cinemax, streaming services HBO Go and HBO Now, and HBO Films. It has also licensed or maintained ownership interests in international versions of HBO and Cinemax.
Media cross-ownership is the common ownership of multiple media sources by a single person or corporate entity. Media sources can include broadcast and cable television, film, radio, newspaper, magazine, book publishing, music, video games, and various online entities. In the United States, a recent increase in media merging and concentration of ownership has correlated with a decrease in trust in mass media.
Tegna Inc. is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publicly traded companies. Tegna comprised the more profitable broadcast television and digital media divisions of the old Gannett, while Gannett's publishing interests were spun off as a "new" company that retained the Gannett name. Tegna owns or operates 66 television stations in 54 markets, and holds properties in digital media.
CBS All Access is an American streaming video service owned and operated by CBS Interactive, a subsidiary of ViacomCBS. It offers original content, content newly aired on CBS's broadcast properties, and content from CBS's library. In the United States, many markets offer a live stream of the local CBS affiliate's main channel. As of February 2019, it has more than 4 million subscribers.
↑ Frances Goldin, Debby Smith, Michael Smith (2014). Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA.Harper Perennial. ISBN0062305573 p. 189:
"Twenty years ago, thirty corporations controlled 90 percent of the media. Today, it is a grand total of six mega-corporations – Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS and Comcast. Besides accumulating their own profits, the media are daily trumpets for the rest of the corporate world's advertising."
↑ Converging Media, Diverging Politics: A Political Economy of News Media in the United States and Canada. Edited by David Skinner, James R. Compton, and Michael Gasher, Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Robert William Jensen, review essay of "Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times," published in The Texas Observer, September 17, 1999, archived hereArchived December 4, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
↑ Tracy, Marc (November 19, 2019). [nytimes.com/2019/11/19/business/media/gannett-gatehouse-merger.html "Gannett, Now Largest U.S. Newspaper Chain, Targets 'Inefficiencies'"] Check |url= value (help). The New York Times. New York Times. Retrieved November 19, 2019.
"Media History Digital Library". David Pierce and Eric Hoyt, directors. USA. Non-profit...dedicated to digitizing historic books and magazines about film, broadcasting, and recorded soundCS1 maint: others (link)
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