If you are not angry and scared by now, you are not paying attention to what is happening in front of our eyes.
13th January 2012
By Michael Snyder – BlacklistedNews.com
Back in 1983, approximately 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the United States. Today, ownership of the news media has been concentrated in the hands of just six incredibly powerful media corporations. These corporate behemoths control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day. They own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites. Sadly, most Americans don’t even stop to think about who is feeding them the endless hours of news and entertainment that they constantly ingest. Most Americans don’t really seem to care about who owns the media. But they should. The truth is that each of us is deeply influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded into our heads by the mainstream media. The average American watches 153 hours of television a month. In fact, most Americans begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long without watching or listening to something. Sadly, most Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and entertainment and the ownership of all that news and entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands each year.
The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal. Together, the “big six” absolutely dominate news and entertainment in the United States. But even those areas of the media that the “big six” do not completely control are becoming increasingly concentrated. For example, Clear Channel now owns over 1000 radio stations across the United States. Companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are increasingly dominating the Internet.
But it is the “big six” that are the biggest concerns. When you control what Americans watch, hear and read you gain a great deal of control over what they think. They don’t call it “programming” for nothing.
Back in 1983 it was bad enough that about 50 corporations dominated U.S. media. But since that time, power over the media has rapidly become concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people….
In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass medium and the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal. … [I]n 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to twenty-nine. … [I]n 1990, the twenty-nine had shrunk to twenty three. … [I]n 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten and involved the $19 billion Disney-ABC deal, at the time the biggest media merger ever. … [In 2000] AOL Time Warner’s $350 billion merged corporation [was] more than 1,000 times larger [than the biggest deal of 1983].
–Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), pp. xx—xxi
Today, six colossal media giants tower over all the rest. Much of the information in the chart below comes from mediaowners.com. The chart below reveals only a small fraction of the media outlets that these six behemoths actually own….
Time Warner
Home Box Office (HBO)
Time Inc.
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
CW Network (partial ownership)
TMZ
New Line Cinema
Time Warner Cable
Cinemax
Cartoon Network
TBS
TNT
America Online
MapQuest
Moviefone
Castle Rock
Sports Illustrated
Fortune
Marie Claire
People Magazine
Walt Disney
ABC Television Network
Disney Publishing
ESPN Inc.
Disney Channel
SOAPnet
A&E
Lifetime
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
Buena Vista Records
Disney Records
Hollywood Records
Miramax Films
Touchstone Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Pixar Animation Studios
Buena Vista Games
Hyperion Books
Viacom
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Home Entertainment
Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Comedy Central
Country Music Television (CMT)
Logo
MTV
MTV Canada
MTV2
Nick Magazine
Nick at Nite
Nick Jr.
Nickelodeon
Noggin
Spike TV
The Movie Channel
TV Land
VH1
via Six Monolithic Corporations That Control Nearly Everything We Watch, Hear And Read | Wake Up World.
Reblogged this on The Nahmias Cipher Report.
You know what I think! I love the picture! How appropriate!
hehehe…let me know if you think I go too far.
Reblogged this on Milenanik3's Blog.
It is for this reason that our household, and many of our friends, have simply turned it all off. No TV and no radio. Great article.
Have you noticed an increase in your mental health once you disconnect from the hive ? I have. Took a while to get used to it but now I have a precious commodity: Time. Time that I can use as I see fit. No commercials, no indoctrination…
I am occassionally tempted back to Netflix for shows, but I have found that I am most intolerant to commercials now that I am unplugged.
You are right on – I don’t have the time.
And I’m meant to feel like a tin foil hat crank whenever I brooch subjects like this with anyone other than my closest friends.
I stopped watching TV a few years ago when I began to notice things about M*A*S*H reruns of all things.
I began to notice huge chunks of the show would go missing to make room for more commercials. I knew this because I had the episodes memorized by watching them for years, and I would be like, “hey, what happened to that part? where did it go?”
It used to be, that you were paying for cable for no commercials. Nowadays they get your money, and then more money again by commercialing at you anyway.
I gave up.
/rant
It’s frustrating and have you noticed that the commercial model of entertainment is already seeping through the Net ? Like, watch a Youtube video and suffer the stupid 15/30 seconds commercials, etc.
I have this disorder that keeps me from NOT noticing commercials. Just the other day I got that Fran show ad and was served without a close button.
There it was, stuck in the middle of the web page I was trying to read. Had to reload. Stuff drives me loony I tells ya.