Some nations can influence and control their media greatly. In addition, powerful corporations also have enormous influence on mainstream media.Technological developments, regulatory policies, political ideologies, cultural trends, economic forces, and globalization, the media landscape in around the globe is rapidly changing. Many people are deeply concerned about the increasing concentration of media production and distribution, and worry about the effect of such consolidation on diversity of opinion and content, creativity, commercialization, and democratic access to the marketplace of ideas. Contemporary research demonstrates increasing levels of consolidation, with many media industries already highly concentrated and dominated by a very small number of firms.
Media mergers are a result of one media related company buying another company for control of their resources in order to increase revenues and viewership. As information and entertainment become a major part of our culture, media companies have been creating ways to become more efficient in reaching viewers and turning a profit. Successful media companies usually buy out other companies to make them more powerful, profitable, and able to reach a larger viewing audience. Media Mergers have become more prevalent in recent a year, which has left people wondering about the negative effects that could be caused by media ownership becoming more concentrated.
As of 2010, The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the US, with News Corporation, Time Warner and Viacom ranking second, third and fourth respectively.
At the end of the 1990s, there were 9 corporations (mainly US) that dominated the media world:
- AOL-Time Warner
- Disney
- Bertelsmann
- Viacom
- News Corporation
- TCI
- General Electric (owner of NBC)
- Sony (owner of Columbia and TriStar Pictures and major recording interests), and
- Seagram (owner of Universal film and music interests).
- Vivendi
Over the years there have been many Merger attempts, some successful, others not. Over time the amount of media merging has increased and the amount of media outlets have increased. That translates to fewer companies owning more media sources, increasing the concentration of ownership. Not all media merger attempts are successful. In February Comcast’s $66 billion bid for Disney failed. But the fact this was attempted and would lead to more concentration if successful raised issues about concentration in media.
When the larger scale media companies buy out the more smaller-scaled or local companies they become more powerful within the market this is often called oligopoly. As they continue to eliminate their business competition through buyouts or forcing them out the companies left dominate the media industry and create a media oligopoly because they lack the resources or finances.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership
http://www.projectcensored.org/censorship/corporate-media-ownership/
Rahmeen Shaikh 