
6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America - known
http://www.morriscreative.com/6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america/
======
ytNumbers
Some might ask why this matters. The problem with these six mega-corporations
is that they are controlled by a handful of billionaires and a few distasteful
foreign governments that do not have the best interests of Americans in mind.
These corporations own the US legacy media outlets (e.g., CNN, MSNBC, FOX,
etc) and most of the larger online US news sites. They have, in my opinion,
been quite effective at brainwashing a huge segment of society with regard to
the important political issues of our day. I've long ago moved on to better
news sources, but I don't personally know anyone else over the age of 30 who
has also done that. It looks like it's going to be many decades before these
giant media outlets finally lose their relevance. And that's a crying shame.

~~~
remotehack
What other sources do you use, I ask as an over 30 something who wants to see
how the other half lives?

~~~
propogandist
NoAgendaShow.com; a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics. They are
listener funded, so they arent subject to pleasing advertiser (as these 6 big
corporation and most news outlets).

One of the hosts is also the 'co-founder of podcasting', took a company public
and registered mtv.com, back in the day. They have a very interesting news
media deconstruction process; Highly recommended.

~~~
voidz
Steve Jobs himself gave him the title "The Podfather"

------
manishsharan
A long time back, I bootstrapped a SaaS which was useful to my reporter
friends. So I tried selling this to what I thought were small town local
newspapers. I called up the editorial or business development contacts listed
in the paper; whenever I got hold of them, I was redirected to
Headquarters,which always was some sort conglomerate enterprise. That is when
I learnt the hard way there is not such thing as a local or small newspaper:
they are just local branches of conglomerates. I gave up because I did not
possess the resources required for an enterprise sales cycle.

~~~
nogbit
Keep looking, near me is
[http://www.kirklandreporter.com](http://www.kirklandreporter.com) and
[http://www.nwnews.com](http://www.nwnews.com). If you can't find one start
one, leverage the software you built.

------
shortformblog
This graphic is out of date and has errors in it. It implies the Huffington
Post is owned by Time Warner, which has never owned it. In fact, AOL bought it
two full years after splitting off from Time Warner.

Additionally, it should be noted that Time Warner recently split its
entertainment properties from its publishing properties [1], and doesn't
account for the fact that the print publishing world is quite a bit different.
Six corporations may own 90 percent of the world's media, but they don't own
The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston
Globe, The Washington Post, or USA Today. Hmm.

[1]:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/03/11/ti...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/03/11/time-
warner-nearing-the-separation-of-its-publishing-business/)

~~~
tripzilch
The article states it has a bunch of things that are no longer up to date,
just before the graphic, doesn't it? It says here follows the infographic
except this has changed and such and is now owned by this and that.

I didn't really feel like looking too deep into that infographic any more
after that. I think it's weird, or lazy, given that this is the meat of the
article, why not make a correct infographic then? It already looks like a
smudgy 3rd generation copy of a JPG sent through whatsapp, so it could use
some cleaning.

It doesn't need to recreate the "funny" clipart figures, just the bar graphs
and the correct numbers.

Or they could've just taken the numbers, the correct who-owns-what, and
written it as a story, which would've been shorter and easier to grasp than
this "keep these errata in mind"-infographic.

I strongly suspect that this article got its upvotes because many people on HN
feel it is an important topic to discuss, not because the quality of the
article itself is that great.

------
Maarten88
A big difference between the US media and the rest of the developed world
seems to be a complete absence of state-owned/subsidized/run media. To me,
this seems much more problematic than the limited competition between
corporate media.

In the US, it seems that news/stories/investigative reporting without some
commercial interest to some company tends to go underreported. There is no
money in being critical towards business (except extreme cases) for the media
companies, who depend on good corporate relations for advertising income.
Critical reporting towards businesses is not happening and government mistrust
is promoted with nothing to balance this.

I think that a healthy media climate needs a mix of commercial and public
journalism, that balance each other out.

As someone living in the Netherlands, there are several popular TV shows on
public TV that, I think, could never exist in the US, because they would be
seen as harming corporate interest. An example being a program investigating
the background, production and health aspects of all kinds of food.

~~~
barrkel
Culturally, many people would dismiss state-owned media perspective as a kind
of Pravda. Because of the cultural perspective, two things would happen:
firstly, politicians would think it's OK to instruct such media to follow a
particular party line; and secondly, journalists and presenters that are the
visible face of the media would also follow the party line, because they think
that's where the money is coming from, so it would be stupid to do otherwise.

The cultural perspective is widespread and it's at the core of many Americans'
cynical approach to the government. "We're from the government and we're here
to help" are genuinely scary words to these people; they have not bought into
the idea of government as a social contract, or the idea that a consensus of
principles could lead to publicly funded media without excessive political
bias. Instead, many Americans view government as a necessary evil that we only
institute to restrain our worst vices, and if the government shows up, it's
because something went badly wrong; that the best government is no government,
which we would have if we acted morally.

~~~
andreasklinger
> two things would happen: firstly, politicians would think it's OK to
> instruct such media to follow a particular party line; and secondly,
> journalists and presenters that are the visible face of the media would also
> follow the party line, because they think that's where the money is coming
> from, so it would be stupid to do otherwise.

In my experience the opposite is true.

eg in Austria:

* politicans aren't allowed to interfere w/ the state owned programming and it's usually deeply rooted opinion in those institutes to be independent - they are a service to the people of the country not the current government

* private media are usually considered to be in favor of the party that pays them the most in ad spending and follows their own political agendas

* state owned news shows are usually known to be more critical (we done the research, stop BSing please) towards politicians than private ones (which politicians obviously consider unfair)

obviously in reality everything is shades of grey and not black/white. eg
journalists still tend to have own political worldviews and report biased with
them. but state owned doesn't by default mean propaganda channel.

~~~
barrkel
I know; but Americans don't, and a state owned channel would be run by
Americans, viewed by Americans and judged by Americans. It would be American,
ie be an instrumental tool of power.

------
notadoc
This is blatantly inaccurate and outdated, which is not to say that there is
not massive media conglomeration but rather the information presented is
inaccurate.

This link is also reblog spam from a BusinessInsider reblog spam from some
other "frugaldad" (FRUGALDAD sounds like a legitimate source of media
conglomeration news, doesn't it?) site from 2011, and even BI stated it was
inaccurate and outdated back _then_ making it even more so now in 2017.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-
control-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-
control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6)

As for the inaccurate info... for starters....

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_NBC_Universal_b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_NBC_Universal_by_Comcast#Divestment_by_GE)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBCUniversal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBCUniversal)

Anyway. Nobody bothering to check on this stuff, even in a highly intelligent
community like HN, is a great example of how inaccurate or untruthful garbage
spreads online.

~~~
tripzilch
I strongly suspect that this article got its upvotes because many people on HN
feel it is an important topic to discuss, not because the quality of the
article itself is that great.

------
untangle
While still small, Netflix probably represents one of the bigger threats to
the Big 6. Of course, this makes it a prime merger target. [0] Netflix is not
mentioned in the article.

[0] [https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/11/15/better-buy-the-
wal...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/11/15/better-buy-the-walt-disney-
company-vs-netflix.aspx)

~~~
rodorgas
I'm thinking how Netflix compares to the traditional media. On demand services
have much less control of what we're going to watch. Bigger catalog -> better
service -> less control.

~~~
rubyfan
One would think the Internet offers the biggest catalog, yet here we are - you
are free to read your news from any source and I mean any source, however the
influence of big media remains. Choice and freedom doesn't mean a better
informed audience.

------
Lagged2Death
I am reminded of a quote that made an impression on me years ago but which I'm
unable to attribute:

"If you don't believe ownership matters, you're not playing capitalism
anymore."

Really, you shouldn't need to go to such a reductionist extreme to find stats
like these troubling. "Tone at the top" is a real enough phenomenon, and
you're not going to have much variety of tone at the top if there are only a
few tops.

~~~
rubyfan
What is that quote from?

------
polskibus
Isn't facebook already bigger than some of the firms mentioned in the
articles? Or is it not counted as media?

~~~
grenoire
Facebook creates no content whatsoever on its own. Its a crowd-funded link
aggregator that earns revenue by ads.

~~~
CamelCaseName
Although you are correct, it is not a stretch to say that Facebook "controls"
the media in deciding what to show, and how it is shown.

In this way, you could say that "Facebook Controls [a significant portion] of
the Media in America"

~~~
unclebucknasty
"Media Filter"?

~~~
alttab
When distribution is bottle necked to a single or few locations, the
difference between content creation and content consumption blurs
significantly. If its not distributed - its not seen. The same net effect as
not ever being created.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Absolutely. The value of media is solely in distribution, irrespective of the
original source. Distribution is kind of baked into the definition.

A term like "media filter" only has value in distinguishing between
"traditional" media and companies like Facebook. But, strictly speaking,
Facebook _is_ as much the media as traditional outlets and, in this context,
those outlets are merely sources for Facebook.

------
_red
I know hardly anyone likes the MSM (myself included), however is this stat so
bad? Is it anything unusual for any other industry?

Mature industries consolidate - its just a fundamental nature of the growth
process. How many corporations control packaged chicken? cell phones? cement?

No doubt the voices behind such "X mega-corps control Y" are in fact just
advocating for legislation changes to mandate that they get a seat at the
table.

The very concept of "MSM" is a bit of an anachronism in this age. Not even
sure why we should talk about it. There are youtube channels broadcast from a
garage that get more daily views than Anderson Cooper ever will. Best thing is
to just switch off the TV and let the dinosaurs slowly die...

~~~
kartan
> Is it anything unusual for any other industry?

Isn't that a big problem? Monopolies and oligopolies are crippling capitalism.
The "too big to fail" conglomerates become just a part of the political system
instead of the economic one.

With the media industry, it gets worse, as it has an important role in keeping
the democratic and economic powers in check.

> No doubt the voices behind such "X mega-corps control Y" are in fact just
> advocating for legislation changes to mandate that they get a seat at the
> table.

Is not that fair? Shouldn't all parts of society be represented in the
industry that consolidates the cultural values of a nation? Why should only
economic power have representation in the media? It is one person one vote,
not one dollar one vote.

~~~
_red
>Is not that fair? Shouldn't all parts of society be represented in the
industry that consolidates the cultural values of a nation? Why should only
economic power have representation in the media? It is one person one vote,
not one dollar one vote.

Your dollar is your vote. You choose what industries you support by where you
spend your dollars (or cast your eyes in this case).

You have the ability to hurt these corporate boogey-men by simply not giving
them money / attention. You already have this power, you don't need a
politician to give it to you. Use it.

~~~
retr0grad3
The 'vote with your dollars' premise is flawed; the very nature of monopoly is
to erode choice by consolidating market position and using influence
(government, market) to maintain position which tends to mean creating
barriers for more choice / new players to enter the market.

------
skinnymuch
The point of the post still stands with control mostly being in the hands of a
few corporations, but it is really outdated. The article does mention AOL
isn't owned by Time Warner anymore and Comcast owns NBC Universal along with
GE never owning Comcast.

Here are the corrections I can point out. I'm not trying to be pedantic or
douche. Just in case someone wants to know up to date info and a bit more info
on the control of media. Here we go:

Infographic saying "read watch or listen" is incorrect as what we read is more
diversified.

Time has spun off from Time Warner. News Corp split. Fox should be the name up
there. News Corp is still big in its own right with its newspaper, books, and
other assets.

If you want to say the above splits still have the same shareholders, then
Viacom and CBS should be featured as one. National Amusements/Sumner family
owns both.

The key company missing is Sony. And no mention of the big 3 in music - Sony,
Time Warner, NBC Universal. Sony is also one of the big 6 in film.

Netflix should probably be included at this point. Hulu is owned by Time
Warner, Disney, Fox, Comcast.

The part saying Time Warner's 178 million users read news each month is out of
date now with the spinoff. Reddit alone gets more users per month now with
over 200M per month.

Going along with that, magazines are more diverse. Condé Nast (also
controlling stake in Reddit), Time, Hearst, and about 3-4 other companies
control most of that industry. But not 90%.

Newspapers are much more diverse in ownership and control, but the infographic
doesn't mention that too much so leave that.

Clear Channel went through a few things and is now iHeartMedia. You could also
mention Sirius XM for radio. They took a stake in Pandora and will probably
completely buy them out. Sirius XM themselves are controlled by Liberty
Media/John Malone.

Could potentially mention other tidbits of companies like Vice and Vox having
minority stakes owned by the big 7 media companies. It's also unknown how Oath
owning AOL and Yahoo will fair under Verizon control. Lots of users and
readers there.

I think that's all I got. Again not trying to be pedantic or douchey. Just
pointing info out. If I got anything wrong, let me know.

~~~
basch
exactly. Leaving out Sony, Advanced Publishing, iHeartMedia, Hearst, Gannett,
tronc, Meridith invalidates the number 6.

what's worse is that iHeart is even in the infographic, but the graphic author
conveniently decides not to count it

~~~
skinnymuch
Haha yeah. Thanks for replying! Maybe I should turn my comment and yours into
a blog post at this point. Was hoping for more responses and discussion.

I didn't even begin mentioning the big newspaper companies like you (Gannett,
tronc).

Funny you mention Advance Publications because of reddit. reddit is beloved
compared to these other media empires, but its ownership stakes aren't
revealed. There's no idea how much of it is owned by Advance Publications :p.

------
walrus1066
It's worse in the UK, 3 companies own 70% of the newspaper readership. They
have huge political influence, especially Rupert Murdoch, who all prime
ministers would try to schmooze
[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/21/uk-media-
plura...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/21/uk-media-plurality-
threatened-by-dominant-group-of-large-firms-report)

~~~
aluhut
Good you still have the BBC.

~~~
remotehack
Who are liberal, modern day liberal, which is worse.

~~~
aluhut
Is it? How so?

------
njarboe
This is an add for Morris Creative Group LLC. Although I would say anti-ad, as
their slick graphic is out of date. But I might not be going deep enough and
the out-of-date graphic has not been redone on purpose like a Nigerian Prince
email having misspelled words and grammar mistakes.

------
dmckeon
> 232 media executives control the information diet of 277 million Americans.
> > That's 1 media exec to 850,000 subscribers

More like 1,194,000 subscribers. How can one take such a presentation
seriously when the authors fail at basic arithmetic?

------
AndyMcConachie
This is what happens when you don't enforce anti-trust laws.

~~~
Torai
> _when you don 't enforce anti-trust laws_

And that is what happens when you accept the legalized corruption of the
political system, in the form of lobbying. The same stakeholders control the
media corporations and the politician who should regulate them.

------
arca_vorago
This is what antimonopoly/antitrust laws should have been used against, but in
this merger and aquisition market, the people with the power to invoke them
are too corrupted and regulatory captured to do it, and so the people suffer.

Side note: in the past posting or talking about this was easy grounds to be
dismissed as a "conspiracy theorist".

------
nogbit
They stir the pot because people consume their content like it's going out of
style. It will only get worse. Don't give them the eyballs, clicks, views or
anything else they can measure and generate revenue from.

Everyone of us have more important things to do in life.

------
princetontiger
Why is GE on this? They don't own NBC. Should be updated for 2017. It's not
2011 anymore.

~~~
pgrote
I noticed that, too.

Clear Channel is also not Clear Channel anymore and do not own 1100 stations.

It is interesting the conversation it has started in this thread even though
it is based on false and out of date information. I guess people just accept
the infographic as reliable truth and go with it.

------
Kenji
Except that media is much more than TV and newspapers. More and more people
turn their backs on traditional media and get their information from a blend
of many internet sites and witness videos on youtube and so on. And I only see
this trend growing in the future.

~~~
bobabooey02
This is true. However, online media is becoming more and more concentrated(and
manipulated) as well. Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, Google, and 4chan all make up
a large chunk of our online media, and it should be apparent to most people at
this point that each of those sites are either controlled by a company,
country, or PR team. It wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing a decline in
trust of online media in the future, too.

~~~
mrkrab
In Europe, generally, 1) webmasters are usually responsible of the comments
left in their webpages by their users, and 2) webmasters have to make clear
what their names and addresses are.

Myself, sometimes I've thought of creating a forum or a community, only to be
turned away when I think of that. Do you think 4chan would have ever existed
if moot had had to put his real name and address there, and if he was legally
responsible of what people published in 4chan? Impossible.

So all online communities will always be concentrated in the US, at least for
the foreseeable future. :(

~~~
bobabooey02
I don't believe the issue is US-vs-nonUS. I believe​the issue is internet
"capital" concentration, which will emerge regardless of national origin.
There is a networking effect that makes it difficult to start a successful
platform, and those in power will eventually​ work to maintain or strengthen
their power.

------
sbaoufbasfub
Here's a video on Noam Chomsky and manufacturing consent:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU)

------
ethanturner
Scary how much of an effect how few can have on so many, just wait 'til they
all are owned by one person (it'll happen)

~~~
kartan
When I see the polarization around health care in the media I find it really
scary. That polarization is not a reflection of the citizens, that most want
better health care for everyone, but of a few voices paid with a lot of
dollars.

This same thing has happened before, like for example in Italy were Berlusconi
abused the media to get favorable ratings. It is part of the tyrant-wanna-be
cookbook.

------
jgalt212
I suggest getting involved in New America / Open Markets and directly
participate in tackling this problem. The downside to this group is that a
number of its funders are, in fact, monopolists themselves.

[https://www.newamerica.org/open-markets/](https://www.newamerica.org/open-
markets/)

------
theelfismike
There's a note in the text, but the infographic is way out of date.

------
TokenDiversity
And both parties misuse media. One example:
[http://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-
campaign...](http://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-
intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/)

------
jccalhoun
How does this compare to media ownership in other countries?

------
skybrian
I'm not sure ownership is as significant as it's made out to be, at least in
the case of the New York Times and Washington Post.

------
epx
Better than just 1 corporation

------
Entalpi
America is like a capatalist dream. People seems to trust money and companies
more than their own government and laws.

------
chinathrow
And one head of state attacks one network.

[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/88150314716807168...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/881503147168071680)

 _shakes head_

~~~
xienze
And Obama used to bitch about Fox News. Now granted, Trump complains a lot
more, but then again, what other president has been scrutinized by a news
network about how many scoops of ice cream he gets?

