I would agree about consolidation.

The bigger problem has been tailoring news media to make a profit, IMO.

Focus on the bottom line distorts what ought to be the goals of a good news media. Obviously, there is some value in producing media that people want to watch, but the goal of informing the audience does not always coincide with good ratings.

Two words:

Fairness Doctrine

I agree totally. I think that looking at the total number of "players" as an indication of concentration is misleading.

First, consider that "media" as defined in that chart is the broadest possible definition - it includes internet, professional sports, myspace.com, book publishing, etc. In other words, the entirety of what could possibly be considered media. I think, generally, people concerened about "media concentration" would consider many of these businesses of low importance. To really make a chart like this informative for competitive purposes it should pare off the theme parks, the social websites, perhaps the Pacific island newspapers, the Atlanta Braves etc. What would be left, I imagine, is a much more concentrated chart, particularly with respect to certain media forms.

Second, particularly with GE and to a lesser degree Fox and Disney, these companies have massive interests beyond their media businesses and those interests are heavily influenced by the political landscape. So even a small amount of concentration in their hands is a ready tool to advance their other interests.

Third, consider this: the radio industry is similarly concentrated (half dozen or so companies control the majority of the industry with a ton of smaller players of all sizes). A couple years ago, after the Dixie Chicks criticized Bush, they disappeared from country radio in retaliation. But in reality, only a few people made that decision at a few different radio conglomerates. That small group of people were able to basically create an industry wide boycott JUST BETWEEN THEMSELVES. Sure, lots of other stations followed because it was the cool thing to do, but they were all ancillary.

Last I'll say this - I believe that it's not so much the total number of media companies so much as the breadth and depth of any individual company. For instance, if GE wants to change the public perception of something, they can attack from every angle: national news coverage, Dateline, the Today Show, Spanish language TV and radio, through popular TV shows like Law & Order, MSNBC, CNBC, Tim Russert, movie production, etc. Even some of the formerly "educational channels" like the History Channel (owned by GE) are more and more producing programming that is tied in with other promotional campaigns (like the Da Vinci Code) which says nothing of the History Channel's intensely pro-Iraq War, jingoistic programming (though I do enjoy it).

One point about CBS. You are correct that it is the successor to Westinghouse, but it is also a former part of Viacom.

Westinghouse bought CBS in 1995, consolidated some other media assets with it, then sold off all the "Westinghouse" industrial units and renamed itself CBS. Viacom bought CBS in 1999, but spun it off again in January of this year.

This furthers your point about the media becoming less concentrated. From what I've read recently (in the "unconsolidated" Wall Street Journal) other large media companies such as Time Warner may also begin selling off some of their divisions and assets.

Having said that, I also agree with the points made that consolidation in itself is not the issue so much as issues of the Beltway echo chamber and favoring cheap production over in-depth and informative content.

It is not "profit-making" by itself, which undermines the news function, it is financial support by advertising. The pervasiveness of corporate/business propaganda (aka advertising) as the lifeblood of the Media is a serious problem.

The history of magazine publishing, in particular, offers some instructive lessons. Editorial strategies that result in high reader regard and attentiveness usually result in inadequate advertiser support. Serving the reader and the advertiser requires deep compromise. No car magazine can afford to offend the carmakers; no teen magazine is going to diss television shows generrally or cosmetics, and they will temper their discussion of sex to avoid offending advertisers.

The PBS Newshour supplements what is, effectively advertiser support by large corporations doing image ads, with support from arch-conservative foundations, promoting reactionary agendas. This is not a solution.

Oddly, consolidation has not seemed to address the most obvious problem with Media news gathering and reporting: redundancy of effort. Having even a dozen actors duplicating the function serves to undermine the ability of any to make a socially optimal sunk cost investment in news gathering. Increasing the number of eyeballs to which a particular Media Giant can "sell" its news product does not seem to have increased the resources available to produce it.

Sorry to be redundant in my postings, and I have no connection to author or publisher, but it is relevant to question of corporatism as part of the problem... regarding big-picture political science history and theory, and connection to Democratic party messaging, but may I encourage folks to look at the book: Vision : Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought by Sheldon S. Wolin. I think it is worth getting out there to the more intellectul or academic minded of the progressive blogsphere as a tome worth looking at:

 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691126275/103-4763409-8459846

 "This is a significantly expanded edition of one of the greatest works of modern political theory. Sheldon Wolin's Politics and Vision inspired and instructed two generations of political theorists after its appearance in 1960. This new edition retains intact the original ten chapters about political thinkers from Plato to Mill, and adds seven chapters about theorists from Marx and Nietzsche to Rawls and the postmodernists. The new chapters, which show how thinkers have grappled with the immense possibilities and dangers of modern power, are themselves a major theoretical statement. They culminate in Wolin's remarkable argument that the United States has invented a new political form, "inverted totalitarianism," in which economic rather than political power is dangerously dominant. In this new edition, the book that helped to define political theory in the late twentieth century should energize, enlighten, and provoke generations of scholars to come. Wolin originally wrote Politics and Vision to challenge the idea that political analysis should consist simply of the neutral observation of objective reality. He argues that political thinkers must also rely on creative vision. Wolin shows that great theorists have been driven to shape politics to some vision of the Good that lies outside the existing political order. As he tells it, the history of theory is thus, in part, the story of changing assumptions about the Good. In the new chapters, Wolin displays all the energy and flair, the command of detail and of grand historical developments, that he brought to this story forty years ago. This is a work of immense talent and intense thought, an intellectual achievement that will endure."

It would be worth knowing the number of viewers, listeners and readers each of the top 10 largest media corporations reach.

The number of people being "informed" by Fox News is probably quite staggering. The number that watch O'Reilly is probably terrifyingly high.

I think we should always be concerned with media consolidation. It's a constant struggle between the people and corporations. The FCC has been siding with the corporations a lot over the last 20 years - citing "new media" as a reason to relax local consolidation of the TV, radio and newspaper. 

No other business is mentioned in the Bill of Rights.  The news media are considered to be so vital to our form of government the they, and they alone, are not supposed to be interfered with by the government.  Isn't there a message in that?

Unfortunately, the major player in the field of distorted news for political purposes is FoxNews, and they remain in that position by telling red state folks what they want to believe is true.  I have relatives who never, ever see news from any other source, and as a result they are unable to discuss current events in any form but sound bites passed on by Karl Rove and his helpers.  But, that is their choice, and that presents a problem. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

Hi Matt,

so, let's say I'm shopping for a car. You claim there are two American manufacturers. GM and Ford? Chrysler doesn't count any more because....they're owned by Daimler Benz? The thing is, if I don't want any of those options, I can buy a Toyota, Honda, or Nissan if I want to go Japanese, or if I want to go with a German car, I can go with a VW, BMW, Audi, or Mercedes. And there are dozens of other options.

So, if I don't like the American media, can I watch a product produced in Japan or Europe instead? Not hardly. Sure if I'm content with reading the Web or magazines I can read a few thing. But it's a very poor comparison, Matt.

Rather than looking for some magic number that would represent the threshhold of too much media consolidation, let's look at the more basic questions about monopolies and ask if they hold true in the media market. Is the consolidation of power in a few actors preventing market entry by new actors? That would appear to be evidently true, when the decision of one radio executive can keep a #1 song off the majority of radio channels in the country.

Furthemore, there is a major difference between the broadcast media, which use public resources, and commodities like automobiles or computers that are produced in the private sector. TV signals go through the air, which is supposedly a public resource to be governed for the public's benefit (and not the benefit of a handful of corporations). Cable TV exists on an infrastructure that was also constructed using public funds.

Let's not forget that Tribune Media is not just a newspaper organization. They own the Chicago Cubs, WGN, etc. This doesn't put them in the same category as GE, but it argues against their being a disinterested observer of the national landscape.

There's television. There's television and then there are the other, in total, less important media. (Sorry print and cyber pundits.)

Dave Johnson's point is very strong. There is no alternative news and information television.