Six (6) Corporation own 90% of all American print, broadcast, and digital media outlets

[Omaha Steve]

http://broadcastunionnews.blogspot.com/2012/06/six-6-corporation-own-90-of-all.html

[Catch2.2]

1. K&R

This is a big reason with what's wrong with this country.

[patrice]

2. That CBS logo is CREEPY!!

[pizzadave]

7. ...the all-seeing eye...

n/t

[patrice]

9. It looks like something from the machine wars in the Animatrix, the machine that

enslaved all of the nations of Earth, with their own complicity, and then created a nuclear war.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328832/

[pizzadave]

16. the matrix

is one of my favorite sci-fi movies. I hope the prequels are better than the two follow up movies. Those who enslave tend to have lots of movies, conspiracies and such written about them.

[patrice]

20. Mine too. I really like the whole "how do you know what is real" question.

[Uncle Joe]

3. And they have created an ever shrinking political, mental box for the American People

to reside in.

Thanks for the thread, Omaha Steve.

[patrice]

4. K&R for the REAL 1st Amendment.

[Marblehead]

5. who owns them....

[raouldukelives]

8. Anyone in the stock market is directly responsible. nt

[rhett o rick]

31. What do you mean? nm

[just1voice]

6. Rec'd, good post.

It makes it clear how easy it is for them to spread their self-interested propaganda.

[hay rick]

10. K&R

[stupidicus]

11. that's really kinda old news

I posted yesterday to support an argument http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002809563 more as a reminder than anything else

It's also one of the reasons I found the BHO candidacy attractive in 08 http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/388/encourage-diversity-in-media-ownership/

[OffWithTheirHeads]

12. I wonder how many of the same people sit on those 6 boards?

[KamaAina]

13. This is going on in every sector

for instance, in roughly the same time frame, we've gone from 27 major banks to 4.

[enough]

14. And where is the flood of post Citizen's United campaign money going?

To those six corporations.

[Dont call me Shirley]

15. It's time for Obama to massively enforce Sherman Anti-Trust Act!

[abelenkpe]

17. We have anti trust laws....

[limpyhobbler]

18. ought to be illegal somehow.

[Blue_Tires]

24. It used to be before they deregulated ownership rules

[Duval]

19. Big Media

Thank you, Omaha Steve. This has been going on far too long, and "The People" are paying for it in many ways. Plus the big problem, too many believe the propaganda and lies. It's as if some have been successfully brain-washed.

[Jamaal510]

21. I hate Viacom.

I uploaded a South Park video and a Cow and Chicken video on YouTube and they both got yanked because of the pesky copyright rules. I now have two strikes remaining before my account is deleted. The funny thing is that those weren't even full episodes that I uploaded--just clips.

[FightForChange]

22. It's ridiculous...

... How much people buy into what people on the news say and don't consider that you are only hearing what they want you to hear. They twist the facts of stories to support their views, and it's not just news they've started to do it with history as well. Don't forget the truth and read between the lines, maybe someday there will be media for and by the people. But I'm not holding my breath.

[onenote]

23. there is too much consolidation, but the 90 percent claim is utterly bogus

Seriously, does it really help us in making the case against media consolidation to throw out ridiculous, easily rebutted claims? Want to make it easy for the other side? THat's what this sort of nonsense does.

I would love to see how they come up with the 90 percent figure. The facts are that there are over 11,000 commercial am and fm radio stations and another 3700 noncommercial radio stations (this is simply over the air -- it doesn't include online or satellite audio services). CBS owns 130 of those stations. ABC used to have an ownership interest in nearly 300 stations, but that interest was sold off to Cumulus a year ago. Can't get to 90 percent of what we hear.

What we read? Of the top 100 newspapers in the US, two are owned by News Corp. None of the other five companies listed have any signficant newspaper ownership. Magazines? Of the top 100 magazines, Time Warner Inc. owns 11 and Disney owns 2. None of the other companies have any magazines in the top 100.

What we watch? There are 1387 commercial television stations and 396 noncommercial stations. Four of the companies listed own a total of around 60 stations; they provide network program to around 800 stations. Comcast (not really GE) is the major cable system owner in the country, with systems serving around 23 million customers. There are another 78 million homes that receive cable or satellite service from a company not on that list. Comcast, Viacom, Disney, Time Warner and News Corp are the biggest providers of non broadcast programming for distribution by cable and satellite and they control close to 90 percent of the top cable networks. But overall, they don't own anywhere near 90 percent of the hundreds of satellite and terrestrial distributed non broadcast video channels.

My point isn't to say the current situation is fine and dandy. Its anything but. There is too much concentration, particularly at the local level among broadcast television stations. But winning the battle to restrain media concentration isn't going to happen if folks make easily rebutted claims. Focus on the real issues, don't make up nonsensical statistical bs.

[coalition_unwilling]

26. I have to admit the 90% figure caused my eyebrows to

rise too.

I have no idea what the 90% refers to? Content? Viewer-hours? Vehicles?

My field of expertise was and is print journalism and there several big chains (Gannett, McClatchy, Tribune Corp., for example) control many local newspapers and some control local television broadcast outlets. (Tribune Corp. owns and operates KTLA5 in Los Angeles, for example). In fact there might just be 6 of those major chains operating now, altho Tribune Corp. has been in and out of bankruptcy so often lately that I no longer know whether it is active.

Like you, I am concerned about the concentration of ownership among the nation's newspapers. But it stretches credulity to think that our media is as highly concentrated as the OP would have us believe.

[Omaha Steve]

25. Buffet started buying newspapers

Maybe to keep consolidation from getting worse?

[freshwest]

27. Thanks for finding that chart. I had one like a while back when they were doing this. A must see!

There is no massive public support for the anti-worker, anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-old, anti-anything that Americans want their nation to be about!

It is all a matter of perception ruled by these corporate giants. Tell them that we aren't buying the lies spread by their over-paid mouth pieces anymore.

[Jake2413]

28. Where is the DOJ on these monopolies

Come to think of it the DOJ has investigated any monopolies since ATT (?) back in what the 70's.

[Lugnut]

29. K&R n/t

[BlueIris]

30. Sad.

Really, really sad.

[Telly Savalas]

32. The only way this can be stopped is to spend 6 hours a day absorbing their media content

and then complaining about it on the internet.

[Dustlawyer]

33. We need a trust buster to break up these oligarchies!

[mother earth]

34. MSM has never been liberal, nor objective. Bought & paid for, a monopoly for the 1%, like oil, and

eveything else. The revolution will not be televised, that's why they want to kill the internet. The dumbing down may not have been successful....the illusion of choice is not limited to media, it's the new "democracy". Hitler would be proud.