Interesting facts were revealed in this article about media mergers:
- 1983: 50 companies controlled 90% of the media consumed by Americans
- 2012: 6 companies controlled 90% of the media consumed by Americans
While better than the government controlling any of it, one can’t help from realizing that the cultural and political views of Americans are somewhat shaped by a tiny group of people.
In offering to divest itself of CNN, Time Warner’s 24-hour news channel, Fox implicitly conceded that there was a separate market for news programming that would be dominated by CNN and Fox News under the same ownership.
Why divest? Put CNN Candy Crawley & Fox Shawn Hannity in the extreme fighting Cage every Friday.
I can’t understand why they let Bell go ahead with the last round of TV mergers or allow any phone mergers involving the big phone companies.
Alternate media companies have sprung up to fill the void.
Robert wrote:
“the cultural and political views of Americans are somewhat shaped by a tiny group of people.”
All ethnic Zoroastrians, no doubt, who by virtue of brilliance and long established record of commitment to excellence pooled their meager savings and accomplished an unified front.
It’s not just that it’s a tiny group – it’s the people who constitute it. The idea that, for example, Jill Abramson, until recently, was responsible for the content of the newspaper with the second largest circulation in the USA is downright depressing. The New York Times has a circulation of more than 1.8 million, and its writers and editors have no more concept of what truth is than a newborn does.
…and 90% of Canadian media is controlled by 5 companies: Rogers, Bell, Shaw, Torstar and Quebecor. The big get bigger by eating the small; it was ever thus. AND THEN small upstarts start drawing an audience that seeks truly diverse insights into the news and events of the day, such as right here at SDA.
Here’s a test > the last time something IMPORTANT hit the news, something that actually could impact YOUR life, did you learn it from a media giant or via a text / Tweet / Drudge / SDA / etc.
My exposure to the CONTENT of the big guys is quite minimal; they CARRY the content to my computer or cell phone but the WRITER’S of that content are quite diverse and generally NON-corporate.
These 6 are almost to a person hard left with anti-Semitic overtones.
“Here’s a test > the last time something IMPORTANT hit the news, something that actually could impact YOUR life, did you learn it from a media giant or via a text / Tweet / Drudge / SDA / etc.”
And where do you think Drudge / SDA / etc. get THEIR news? Most SDA posts, like most Drudge headlines, Tweets, and texts, can be traced back to some corporate news media source. Hell, even this thread is drawn from a NYT article.
“The idea that, for example, Jill Abramson, until recently, was responsible for the content of the newspaper with the second largest circulation in the USA is downright depressing.”
Does the fact that the newspaper with the largest circulation in the USA (WSJ) and the television news channel with the largest viewership in the USA (FoxNews) are both controlled by the same guy (Rupert Murdoch)? Or is it just left-leaning media conglomerates that depress you?
If you watch TV and read papers as often as I do–you won’t loswe any sleep over who controls the media. Just gety rid of the CBC!!
well now stupid is hard to fix, go googling and find out that “Faux” gives about 2 times as much cash to the lefties as it does to the GOP. Maybe old Roopy is a little more left than you think. And then you have that Fox is about the only rite wing TV news out let, so if you add up all the lefty out lets you may find that context is also important when you yap off.
If you watch TV and read papers as often as I do–you won’t lose any sleep over who controls the media. Just get rid of the CBC!!
to read about the number of viewers and or readers of main stream media I am surprised they have any influence at all.