Ways in which the media is owned!

Ways in which the media is owned!

This is also known as:

Media consolidation

Media convergence

So, what is it?

The two terms listed above are primarily definitions for  a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or in some cases organisations control increasing shares of the mass media. By the term 'mass media' I simply mean using media platforms (such as television, newspapers, magazines, and radio) as a means of public communication therefore reaching a large audience. 

Contemporary research demonstrates increasing levels of consolidation. It is known that many media industries are dominated by a very small number of firms and a are already highly concentrated.

Before progressing further, we must fist learn the definition of a conglomerate. Now this term, by definition simply refers to a company that owns large numbers of companies in various mass media such as television, radio, publishing, movies, and the Internet. These companies strive for policies that facilitate their control of the markets around the world.

According to statistics here are some of the largest current media conglomerates.

These include:

• Viacom
• CBS Corporation
• Time Warner
• News Corporation
• Bertelsmann AG
• Sony
• Comcast
• Vivendi 
• Televisa
• The Walt Disney Company 
• Hearst Corporation
• Organizações Globo 
• Lagardère Group

According to the 2013 Fortune 500 list, The Walt Disney Company (listed 10th in the list above) is America's largest media conglomerate in terms of revenue. News Corporation (now News Corp & 21st Century Fox), Time Warner, CBS Corporation, and Viacom follow this, completing the top five.

Media oligopoly

This is simply when a few firms dominate a market. When the larger scale media companies buy out the more smaller-scaled or local companies they become more powerful within the market. As they continue to eliminate their business competition through buyouts or forcing them out (because they lack the resources or finances) the companies left dominate the media industry and create a media oligopoly.

A good example of a company that preforms this are Google! 

Mergers

Mergers in terms of media are simply a result of one media related company buying another company for control of their resources in order to increase revenues and viewership, in essence a partnership. Both information and entertainment have now become a major part of our culture and because of this media companies have been creating new ways to become more efficient in reaching viewers and turning a profit (which we have to remember, media is all about)

Mergers, much like the name suggests are when two companies join in order to gain more power, a bigger audience and a bigger profit. 

In todays age media mergers have become more prevalent, which has people wondering about the negative effects that could be caused by media ownership becoming more concentrated. These negative effects are a result of a lack of competition as well as biased political views and diversity. 

.

Net Neutrality 

This concept involves a lack of restrictions on content on the internet, however, with big businesses supporting campaigns (in financial terms) they tend to have influence over political issues, which can translate into specific, or certain mediums.

These big businesses that also have control over internet usage or the airwaves could possibly make the content available biased from their political stand point or they could restrict usage for conflicting political views, therefore eliminating Net Neutrality.

A news story concerning this can be found below:

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/11/18/britain-internet-porn-google-microsoft-idINDEE9AH09T20131118

When it comes to media ownership, (or any subject for that matter) there will always be issues, below we will be looking at some of the issues raised by the concentration of media ownership and how it is often regarded as a problem for both contemporary media and society.

Firstly the method of 'some companies owning a majority of the media' results in only the few companies with power controlling the public airwaves (what we see and watch) meaning we only really get one biased opinion concerning a certain subject!

Secondly the companies that have the power are all commercially driven, this means that they are primarily loyal to sponsers (for example advertisers) more than they are to the viewing audience, which results in a much less enjoyable viewing experience.

The final negative factor of this system of ownership concerns the absence of market based competition, which results in increased prices and slower innovation.

Below we will be looking at these issues in more depth, starting with deregulation!

Deregulation

There are numerous explanations concerning the cause of the concentration of media ownership, yet one of them involves a shift to neoliberal deregulation policies, this simply involves a more market-driven approach to media. 

The term deregulation effectively means the removal of governmental barriers to allow for the commercial exploitation of media, here are two of the reasons participating in the merging of media firms:

• Increased profit-margins
• Reduced risk
• Being able to maintain a competitive edge 

People who support this technique often argue that cultural trade barriers and regulations harm consumers. In addition to this they also state that domestic support in the form of subsidies hinders countries to develop their own strong media firms. 

Yet when it comes to positives, there must be negatives to counter, this is where the word of the critics come in.

Critics of media deregulation fear that such trends will only continue to reduce the diversity of information provided, as well as reducing the accountability of information providers to the public. The ultimate consequence of consolidation, critics argue, is a poorly informed public, who are restricted to a reduced array of media options that offer only information that does not harm the media oligopoly's.

For critics media deregulation is a dangerous trend, facilitating an increase in concentration of media ownership. By preforming this, it subsequently reduces the overall quality and diversity of information communicated through major media channels.

Freedom of the press and editorial independence

Secondly, we will be looking at the 'Freedom of the press and editorial independence.'

Reporters have often seen their stories refused or edited beyond recognition. This happens a lot more than you might think, an example of when this had happened would be the repeated refusal of networks to air "ads" from anti-war advocates to liberal groups, much like on MoveOn.org, regardless of factual basis. 

Journalists and their reports may be directly sponsored by parties who are the subject of their journalism leading to reports which actually favor the sponsor, have that appearance, or are simply a repetition of the sponsors opinion. In addition to this if the companies dominating a media market choose to suppress stories that do not serve their interests, the public suffers. 

Concern among academia rests in the notion that the purpose of the first amendment to the US constitution was to encourage a free press as political agitator evidenced by the famous quote from US President Thomas Jefferson

He stated  "The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." Freedom of the press has long been combated by large media companies objections have just as long been dismissed by the supreme courts.

The final concern

Another concern is that consolidated media is not flexible enough to serve local communities in case of emergency. Some say that the Minot train derailment was exacerbated by consolidation of media, but an EOU study cited by Radioworld notes that even though Minot's media was under the same ownership, the Emergency Alert System ((EAS) - which is completely automated) - should have been activated by emergency management officials) but was not.

This showed that consolidated media did not play a significant role in this incident.

In the following section we will be focusing on the Determinants of media pluralism.

Starting off with:

Consolidation of resources

By the term 'resources' in this context we simply mean 'cost functions and cost-sharing'. So we'll be looking more into the following definitions below.

Cost-sharing is a common practice in both cross media and monomedia. In the instance of 'multi-product television or radio broadcasters', the more homogeneity possible between different services held in common ownership (or the more elements within a programme schedule which can be shared between ’different’ stations), the greater the opportunity to reap economies.

Not forgetting that the main concern of pluralism is that 'different organisation under different ownership may buy the same' 

An example of this could be news stories from the same news-supplier agency. In the UK, the biggest news-supplier is The Press Association (PA) and here is a quoted text from their website:

“The Press Association supplies services to every national and regional daily newspaper, major broadcasters, online publishers and a wide range of commercial organisations.” 

Overall, in a system where all different media organizations gather their stories from the same source, we are unable to refer to that system as pluralist. That is where diversity of output ventures in.

Next we will be looking at the size and wealth of the market.

Size and wealth of the market

As common knowledge states, and money dictates, when it comes to any portion of the free market economy, the level of resources available for the provision of media will be primarily limited by the size and wealth of said economy, and the propensity of its inhabitants in the consumption of media.

Countries that have a relatively large market (such as the United Kingdom, Spain, France) have more financial background to support diversity of output and have the ability to keep more media companies in the market, due to the circumstances involving a profit being made). 

More diverse output and fragmented ownership will, obviously, support pluralism. Yet In contrast, small markets like Ireland or Hungary suffer from the absence of the diversity of output given in countries with bigger markets.

It means that “support for the media through direct payment” and “levels of consumers expenditure” are less in these countries, due to the low number of audience. Overall, the size and wealth of the market determine the diversity of both media output and media ownership.

Finally, for this section, we will be ending with:

Diversity of owners/suppliers

The term 'Diversity of suppliers' refers to those heterogeneous independent organizations that are involved in media production and to the common ownership as well. The more various suppliers there are, the better for pluralism is. However, “the more powerful individual suppliers become, the greater the potential threat to pluralism.”

To end this document we will be looking at concentration of media ownership in particular countries/nations: 

The countries we will be looking at are

The United Kingdom

and the United States

Let's first start off with looking at The United Kingdom:

In both Britain and Ireland, Rupert Murdoch owns best-selling tabloid The Sun as well as the broadsheet The Times and Sunday Times, and 39% of satellite broadcasting network BSkyB.

In March 2011, the United Kingdom provisionally approved Murdoch to buy the remaining 61% of BSkyB,however, subsequent events (News of the World hacking scandal and its closure in July 2011) leading to the Leveson Inquiry have halted this takeover.

Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) own The Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, Ireland on Sunday, and free London daily Metro, and control a large proportion of regional media, including through subsidiary Northcliffe Media, in addition to large shares in ITN and GCap Media.

Richard Desmond owns OK! magazine, Channel 5, the Daily Express and the Daily Star.

The Evening Standard and The Independent are both owned by Russian businessman and ex KGB agent Alexander Lebedev.

Finally ending with the United States

In the United States, movie production is known to be dominated by major studios since the early 20th Century. Both the music and television industries recently witnessed cases of media consolidation, with Sony Music Entertainment's parent company merging their music division with Bertelsmann AG's BMG to form Sony BMG and Tribune's The WB and CBS Corp.'s UPN merging to form The CW.

In Sony BMG's case there existed a "Big Five" (now "Big Four") of major record companies, while The CW's creation was an attempt to consolidate ratings and stand up to the "Big Four" of American network (terrestrial) television (this despite the fact that the CW was, in fact, partially owned by one of the Big Four in CBS). In television, the vast majority of broadcast and basic cable networks, over a hundred in all, are controlled by eight corporations: News Corporation (the Fox family of channels), The Walt Disney Company (which includes the ABC, ESPN and Disney brands), National Amusements (which includes CBS Corporation and Viacom), Comcast (which includes the NBC brands), Time Warner, Discovery Communications, E. W. Scripps Company,Cablevision, or some combination thereof.

In the United States, data on ownership and market share of media companies is not held in the public domain.

Here is a diagram showing the concentration of media ownership: