9 ms·

6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

210 points by known 9y ago

theelfismike 9y ago
There's a note in the text, but the infographic is way out of date.
Kenji 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
  - r00fus 9y ago
    To point: fake news. Whether a particular undesirable-to-power news item is fake or not, the news can be labeled as fake. The well is being poisoned as we speak.
  - mrkrab 9y ago
    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 9y ago
      I don't believe the issue is US-vs-nonUS. I believethe 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.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  Pew keeps tabs on this. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/15/state-of-the-news-media-2016-key-takeaways/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/15/state-of-the...
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  The problem in my view is that somebody still needs to do the original reporting. From what I can tell most internet sites just comment on what other sites are writing but they rarely add any new information to the mix. They just comment on existing information. We still need organizations that can afford to undertake long investigations.
ethanturner 9y ago
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)
- wslh 9y ago
  That is true but it is more a distribution problem, if you add more companies and shuffle the sector again it will stabilize in few corporations again.
- kartan 9y ago
  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.
_red 9y ago
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...
- alexandercrohde 9y ago
  Yes it's bad. It doesn't really matter if it's "usual" or not, that's a different question. Most industries consolidate into large behemoths that are incredibly inefficient and only stay in business due to patents and buying up all the resources (e.g. cell-phone companies, comcast, certain chip-makers). Innovation dies. And you're right, it's happening right now with youtube defeating the these corporations, and that's good. But if one of these companies somehow bought youtube from google, that'd be bad, because consolidation (especially around distribution of information) is typically bad.
  - _red 9y ago
    >But if one of these companies somehow bought youtube from google, that'd be bad, because consolidation (especially around distribution of information) is typically bad. So youtube2.com can never be created? How long has Instagram been around? Furthermore, your premise is financially flawed. How is the bankrupt NYT going to buy google? The MSM is turning into the "horse buggy whip" situation. Its an old, out-dated industry that is dying. Who cares if eventually only 3 businesses controls "ACME Horse Buggy Whips" -- its not really something to panic about.
    - alexandercrohde 9y ago
      The point is that big companies with financial backing will use market advantage to stifle competition before it gets a chance (e.g. buying up the spectrum for cell phones, lobbying to prevent broadband competitors, patenting very basic concepts, buying up competition in its infancy). You can argue they missed the boat on buying youtube and putting it to their own ends (e.g. YouTube prime is only comcast subscribers). It sounds like you want to disagree with me, but my two points are [and you haven't really provided arguments against either] 1. There is insufficient competition in the market (cell phones, ISP, computer parts, and many others). Much of this is due to deliberate actions by larger companies to protect their pie. 2. The consolidation of media is bad for consumers, and its death is good. The level playing field of a public internet made all the difference.
polskibus 9y ago
Isn't facebook already bigger than some of the firms mentioned in the articles? Or is it not counted as media?
- golemotron 9y ago
  Media is a misnomer. Facebook and most new sources are advertising companies.
  - igravious 9y ago
    I think you'd have to agree on this. A corporation's main revenue stream is their business regardless of how diversified they are. So Google is a search-driven advertising company. Facebook is a social-networking-driven advertising company. This all depends on what % of revenue is ad-based. The other tech giants, Apple and Microsoft (Oracle, Samsung, SAP, Huawei, …) actually make most of their money selling combos of hardware, software, and services. Perhaps Amazon is unusual in that it's a web-retailer? I just checked and AWS[0] only accounts for 8% of their revenue as of Feb. of this year. It looks like we won't have an end to data-slurping until we somehow invalidate the ad revenue model. [0] https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-web-services-posts-3-5b-revenue-47-last-year/ https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-web-services-posts-3-5b...
    - chibg10 9y ago
      AWS may be 8% of Amazon's revenue, but I believe I've read AWS is disproportionately profitable (compared to Amazon's retail segment). I'm not sure what the exact numbers are, but I think it you can make a reasonable argument that a company is defined by where its profits come from moreso than its revenue. I could see reasonable arguments the other way around too though. EDIT: Thanks njarboe for catching confusing typo
      - njarboe 9y ago
        s/profits/revenue
- 9y ago
chinathrow 9y ago
And one head of state attacks one network. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/881503147168071680 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/88150314716807168... shakes head
- xienze 9y ago
  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?
princetontiger 9y ago
Why is GE on this? They don't own NBC. Should be updated for 2017. It's not 2011 anymore.
- pgrote 9y ago
  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.
skybrian 9y ago
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.
manishsharan 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
TokenDiversity 9y ago
And both parties misuse media. One example: http://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/ http://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign...
Maarten88 9y ago
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.
- elefanten 9y ago
  We have NPR and PBS, but no large/official federal apparatus. I think a big part is the history of suspicion of government (part of America's founding myth, etc) but there's also always been a robust private media in the US. Lots of Founders, eg Ben Franklin, were publishers.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  Whilst not state-owned, and only modestly state-supported, PBS, CPB, NPR, PRI, APM, and PRX produce programming and operate television and radio stations across the country. NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered news magazine programmes are the 2nd and 3rd highest rated radio programmes by listenership. (Rush Limbaugh comes in 1st.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-listened-to_radio_programs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-listened-to_rad...
- barrkel 9y ago
  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.
AndyMcConachie 9y ago
This is what happens when you don't enforce anti-trust laws.
- Torai 9y ago
  > 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.
walrus1066 9y ago
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-plurality-threatened-by-dominant-group-of-large-firms-report https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/21/uk-media-plura...
- aluhut 9y ago
  Good you still have the BBC.
  - remotehack 9y ago
    Who are liberal, modern day liberal, which is worse.
    - aluhut 9y ago
      Is it? How so?
- remotehack 9y ago
  Considering Fox is the only reputable news outlet left, I don't support the negative connotation you imply.
ytNumbers 9y ago
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 9y ago
  What other sources do you use, I ask as an over 30 something who wants to see how the other half lives?
  - skrowl 9y ago
    Internet media is the new media. Check out DrudgeReport.com, breitbart.com and InfoWars.com. If you're looking for something on your TV, your only hope is OANN, but most cable providers don't carry them yet.
    - theWatcher37 9y ago
      OANN rocks! Been very happy with it.
      - dhimes 9y ago
        LOL For those of you who haven't had the opportunity to view the One America News Network, they think the guys over at Fox are a bunch of liberal pussies.
      - MicroBerto 9y ago
        OAN's talking heads are obviously conservative, but if you want a REAL news reel with no trash, theirs is easily the quickest and most informative. And they play that more than pundits, which is nice.
untangle 9y ago
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-walt-disney-company-vs-netflix.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/11/15/better-buy-the-wal...
- remotehack 9y ago
  The question then becomes which is better, the current big 6 or the new big 6 headed by Netflix.
- rodorgas 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    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 9y ago
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 9y ago
  What is that quote from?
jccalhoun 9y ago
How does this compare to media ownership in other countries?
njarboe 9y ago
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.
Entalpi 9y ago
America is like a capatalist dream. People seems to trust money and companies more than their own government and laws.
jgalt212 9y ago
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/
skinnymuch 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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
sbaoufbasfub 9y ago
Here's a video on Noam Chomsky and manufacturing consent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU
epx 9y ago
Better than just 1 corporation
shortformblog 9y ago
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/time-warner-nearing-the-separation-of-its-publishing-business/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/03/11/ti...
- tripzilch 9y ago
  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.
arca_vorago 9y ago
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".
dmckeon 9y ago
> 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?
nogbit 9y ago
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.
notadoc 9y ago
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-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-... As for the inaccurate info... for starters.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_NBC_Universal_by_Comcast#Divestment_by_GE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_NBC_Universal_b... 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 9y ago
  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.

210 points by known 9y ago

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

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 9y ago
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.
- r00fus 9y ago
  To point: fake news. Whether a particular undesirable-to-power news item is fake or not, the news can be labeled as fake. The well is being poisoned as we speak.
- mrkrab 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    I don't believe the issue is US-vs-nonUS. I believethe 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.
dredmorbius 9y ago
Pew keeps tabs on this. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/15/state-of-the-news-media-2016-key-takeaways/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/15/state-of-the...
maxxxxx 9y ago
The problem in my view is that somebody still needs to do the original reporting. From what I can tell most internet sites just comment on what other sites are writing but they rarely add any new information to the mix. They just comment on existing information. We still need organizations that can afford to undertake long investigations.

ethanturner 9y ago

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)

wslh 9y ago
That is true but it is more a distribution problem, if you add more companies and shuffle the sector again it will stabilize in few corporations again.
kartan 9y ago
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.

_red 9y ago

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...

alexandercrohde 9y ago
Yes it's bad. It doesn't really matter if it's "usual" or not, that's a different question. Most industries consolidate into large behemoths that are incredibly inefficient and only stay in business due to patents and buying up all the resources (e.g. cell-phone companies, comcast, certain chip-makers). Innovation dies. And you're right, it's happening right now with youtube defeating the these corporations, and that's good. But if one of these companies somehow bought youtube from google, that'd be bad, because consolidation (especially around distribution of information) is typically bad.
- _red 9y ago
  >But if one of these companies somehow bought youtube from google, that'd be bad, because consolidation (especially around distribution of information) is typically bad. So youtube2.com can never be created? How long has Instagram been around? Furthermore, your premise is financially flawed. How is the bankrupt NYT going to buy google? The MSM is turning into the "horse buggy whip" situation. Its an old, out-dated industry that is dying. Who cares if eventually only 3 businesses controls "ACME Horse Buggy Whips" -- its not really something to panic about.
  - alexandercrohde 9y ago
    The point is that big companies with financial backing will use market advantage to stifle competition before it gets a chance (e.g. buying up the spectrum for cell phones, lobbying to prevent broadband competitors, patenting very basic concepts, buying up competition in its infancy). You can argue they missed the boat on buying youtube and putting it to their own ends (e.g. YouTube prime is only comcast subscribers). It sounds like you want to disagree with me, but my two points are [and you haven't really provided arguments against either] 1. There is insufficient competition in the market (cell phones, ISP, computer parts, and many others). Much of this is due to deliberate actions by larger companies to protect their pie. 2. The consolidation of media is bad for consumers, and its death is good. The level playing field of a public internet made all the difference.

polskibus 9y ago

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

golemotron 9y ago
Media is a misnomer. Facebook and most new sources are advertising companies.
- igravious 9y ago
  I think you'd have to agree on this. A corporation's main revenue stream is their business regardless of how diversified they are. So Google is a search-driven advertising company. Facebook is a social-networking-driven advertising company. This all depends on what % of revenue is ad-based. The other tech giants, Apple and Microsoft (Oracle, Samsung, SAP, Huawei, …) actually make most of their money selling combos of hardware, software, and services. Perhaps Amazon is unusual in that it's a web-retailer? I just checked and AWS[0] only accounts for 8% of their revenue as of Feb. of this year. It looks like we won't have an end to data-slurping until we somehow invalidate the ad revenue model. [0] https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-web-services-posts-3-5b-revenue-47-last-year/ https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-web-services-posts-3-5b...
  - chibg10 9y ago
    AWS may be 8% of Amazon's revenue, but I believe I've read AWS is disproportionately profitable (compared to Amazon's retail segment). I'm not sure what the exact numbers are, but I think it you can make a reasonable argument that a company is defined by where its profits come from moreso than its revenue. I could see reasonable arguments the other way around too though. EDIT: Thanks njarboe for catching confusing typo
    - njarboe 9y ago
      s/profits/revenue
9y ago

chinathrow 9y ago

And one head of state attacks one network. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/881503147168071680 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/88150314716807168... shakes head

xienze 9y ago
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?

princetontiger 9y ago

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

pgrote 9y ago
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.

skybrian 9y ago

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.

manishsharan 9y ago

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 9y ago
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.

TokenDiversity 9y ago

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

Maarten88 9y ago

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.

elefanten 9y ago
We have NPR and PBS, but no large/official federal apparatus. I think a big part is the history of suspicion of government (part of America's founding myth, etc) but there's also always been a robust private media in the US. Lots of Founders, eg Ben Franklin, were publishers.
dredmorbius 9y ago
Whilst not state-owned, and only modestly state-supported, PBS, CPB, NPR, PRI, APM, and PRX produce programming and operate television and radio stations across the country. NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered news magazine programmes are the 2nd and 3rd highest rated radio programmes by listenership. (Rush Limbaugh comes in 1st.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-listened-to_radio_programs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-listened-to_rad...
barrkel 9y ago
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.

AndyMcConachie 9y ago

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

Torai 9y ago
> 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.

walrus1066 9y ago

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-plurality-threatened-by-dominant-group-of-large-firms-report https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/21/uk-media-plura...

aluhut 9y ago
Good you still have the BBC.
- remotehack 9y ago
  Who are liberal, modern day liberal, which is worse.
  - aluhut 9y ago
    Is it? How so?
remotehack 9y ago
Considering Fox is the only reputable news outlet left, I don't support the negative connotation you imply.

ytNumbers 9y ago

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 9y ago
What other sources do you use, I ask as an over 30 something who wants to see how the other half lives?
- skrowl 9y ago
  Internet media is the new media. Check out DrudgeReport.com, breitbart.com and InfoWars.com. If you're looking for something on your TV, your only hope is OANN, but most cable providers don't carry them yet.
  - theWatcher37 9y ago
    OANN rocks! Been very happy with it.
    - dhimes 9y ago
      LOL For those of you who haven't had the opportunity to view the One America News Network, they think the guys over at Fox are a bunch of liberal pussies.
    - MicroBerto 9y ago
      OAN's talking heads are obviously conservative, but if you want a REAL news reel with no trash, theirs is easily the quickest and most informative. And they play that more than pundits, which is nice.

untangle 9y ago

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

remotehack 9y ago
The question then becomes which is better, the current big 6 or the new big 6 headed by Netflix.
rodorgas 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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 9y ago

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 9y ago
What is that quote from?

jccalhoun 9y ago

How does this compare to media ownership in other countries?

njarboe 9y ago

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.

Entalpi 9y ago

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

jgalt212 9y ago

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/

skinnymuch 9y ago

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 9y ago
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

sbaoufbasfub 9y ago

Here's a video on Noam Chomsky and manufacturing consent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU

epx 9y ago

Better than just 1 corporation

shortformblog 9y ago

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

tripzilch 9y ago
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.

arca_vorago 9y ago

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".

dmckeon 9y ago

> 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?

nogbit 9y ago

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.

notadoc 9y ago

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-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-... As for the inaccurate info... for starters.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_NBC_Universal_by_Comcast#Divestment_by_GE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_NBC_Universal_b... 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 9y ago
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.