Concentration of Media Ownership

Based on Wikipedia: Concentration of media ownership

In 1983, roughly fifty companies controlled the majority of American media. By 2011, that number had collapsed to six. Six corporations—Comcast, Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, and CBS—deciding what stories get told to hundreds of millions of people. This compression of control represents one of the most dramatic consolidations of information power in modern history.

And then the internet arrived.

The story of media concentration isn't a simple tale of ever-increasing corporate dominance. It's messier than that. The traditional giants that seemed unstoppable two decades ago now find themselves scrambling to compete against companies that didn't exist when the first iPhone was released. Meta, ByteDance, and X have carved out enormous influence over how billions of people consume information—but whether this represents a democratization of media or simply a new form of concentration remains hotly contested.

The Mechanics of Media Consolidation

When we talk about media concentration, we're describing a process where ownership of mass media—television networks, newspapers, radio stations, film studios, streaming services—becomes concentrated in fewer hands over time. A media merger happens when one company acquires another. An oligopoly forms when a small number of firms dominate an entire market.

Think of it like a game of Monopoly that's been running for decades. The properties get bought up, trades get made, and eventually a handful of players control most of the board. The difference is that in the real economy, the properties are the channels through which you learn about your government, your community, and your world.

The major players today include names both familiar and obscure. Comcast NBCUniversal leads in revenue, followed by Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and the recently merged Paramount Skydance. Globally, the list expands to include Bertelsmann from Germany, Sony from Japan, News Corp spanning multiple continents, and regional powerhouses like Grupo Globo in South America.

Why Does This Happen?

Media companies merge for the same reasons any companies merge: money, safety, and survival.

The profit motive is straightforward. Larger companies can share costs across more properties. When one corporation owns both a film studio and a streaming service, it can produce content for one and distribute through the other without paying outside fees. When it owns multiple television stations, it can share reporters, equipment, and infrastructure. Economists call these "economies of scale"—the bigger you get, the cheaper each unit of production becomes.

Risk reduction matters enormously in an unpredictable industry. A company that owns only newspapers is devastated when print advertising collapses. A company that owns newspapers, television stations, streaming services, and theme parks can weather downturns in any single sector. Diversification across media types provides insurance against technological disruption.

Competition drives consolidation too. If your rival acquires a major distribution network, you need to respond or risk becoming irrelevant. The arms race of acquisition begets more acquisition.

But the most important factor may be regulatory. The scholar Robert McChesney argues that media concentration accelerated dramatically during the neoliberal era of the 1980s and 1990s, when governments systematically removed barriers to consolidation. Deregulation—the rolling back of rules limiting who could own what and how much—opened floodgates that had previously contained corporate expansion.

The Case Against Concentration

Critics of media consolidation make an argument that sounds almost quaint in its democratic idealism: the people who control information have power over society, and that power should be dispersed rather than concentrated.

The concept of "media integrity" captures what's at stake. An independent media outlet can serve the public interest precisely because it doesn't depend on powerful institutions for its survival. It can investigate corporate malfeasance because it isn't owned by a corporation with interests to protect. It can question government policy because it doesn't need government favors to operate.

When ownership consolidates, these checks weaken. A media company owned by a defense contractor might soft-pedal coverage of military spending. A newspaper owned by a real estate developer might underreport housing code violations. The corruption isn't necessarily conscious or explicit—it operates through the subtler mechanisms of what stories get assigned, what sources get quoted, what angles get emphasized.

Johannes von Dohnanyi, writing for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2003, warned that both horizontal concentration (owning multiple outlets of the same type) and vertical concentration (controlling different stages of production and distribution) threaten media pluralism. Horizontal concentration reduces the diversity of voices. Vertical concentration creates barriers that prevent new competitors from entering the market.

The ultimate fear is what critics call a "poorly informed public"—citizens who receive only the information that serves the interests of a small number of powerful owners, unable to access the diverse perspectives necessary for meaningful democratic participation.

The Case For—or at Least Tolerating—Consolidation

Not everyone sees concentration as inherently problematic.

Supporters of deregulation argue that market restrictions harm consumers by keeping prices artificially high and limiting innovation. They point out that protectionist media regulations in smaller countries often fail to develop domestic industries capable of competing globally. Sometimes the best way to build strong national media companies is to let them grow through acquisition rather than constraining them with ownership limits.

There's also a practical argument about market size. The United Kingdom, France, and Spain have populations large enough to support diverse media ecosystems with multiple competing owners. But smaller markets like Ireland or Hungary simply don't have enough audience and advertising revenue to sustain many independent outlets. In these contexts, some consolidation may be inevitable—the alternative isn't vibrant competition but rather no local media at all.

And ownership, some argue, isn't the same as control. In a free market economy, owners need the ability to set strategy for their companies. Having an editorial perspective isn't inherently corrupt—it's part of what distinguishes one outlet from another. The key is transparency: does the audience know who owns what and what interests they represent?

Understanding Media Pluralism

The concept of "media pluralism" helps clarify what exactly concentration threatens. Pluralism isn't just about how many companies exist—it encompasses the full range of conditions necessary for diverse information to reach citizens.

External pluralism refers to the overall media landscape. How many outlets operate in a given market? Are they owned by different entities with different perspectives? Do new competitors have realistic paths to entry?

Internal pluralism operates within individual organizations. Does a single outlet represent multiple viewpoints, including minority perspectives? Public broadcasters in many countries are specifically required to provide this internal diversity, presenting various sides of controversies rather than advocating for a single position.

True pluralism requires both. A market with twenty outlets all owned by two companies and promoting similar perspectives fails the test of external pluralism. A market with hundreds of outlets all appealing to the same demographic and ignoring minority voices fails the test of internal pluralism.

The scope extends beyond ownership to include editorial independence, journalist working conditions, the relationship between media and politics, the representation of local communities, and the inclusion of marginalized voices. Media pluralism asks whether citizens can access the diverse sources necessary to form their own opinions free from the undue influence of dominant powers.

The News Supply Chain Problem

Here's a wrinkle that makes concentration harder to measure than it might appear: even outlets under different ownership often get their information from the same sources.

In the United Kingdom, the Press Association supplies news content to virtually every national and regional newspaper, major broadcasters, and online publishers. Different mastheads, different owners, ostensibly different perspectives—but the underlying stories come from a single agency.

This matters because apparent diversity can mask underlying homogeneity. If twenty newspapers all run the same wire story with the same quotes and the same framing, the fact that they have twenty different owners provides less protection for pluralism than it might seem. The diversity that matters isn't just in who owns the outlets but in who actually produces the journalism.

A Brazilian Case Study

Brazil offers a particularly instructive example of how concentration manifests in practice. Dr. Venício A. de Lima, writing in 2003, described an environment "very conducive to concentration" with deliberately weak regulations that went "in the opposite direction of what happens in countries like France, Italy and the United Kingdom."

The factors enabling concentration included: minimal limits on how much of the broadcasting industry a single economic group could own; short waiting periods before broadcasting licenses could be resold (making it easy for major groups to buy up independent stations); and no restrictions on forming national broadcasting networks.

Lima identified four types of concentration operating in Brazil:

Horizontal concentration creates oligopoly or monopoly within a single industry. In 2002, the cable networks Sky and NET controlled sixty-one percent of the Brazilian market. In the same year, TV Globo and its affiliates received seventy-eight percent of all television advertising spending.

Vertical concentration integrates different stages of production and distribution, eliminating independent producers. TV Globo became famous for its soap operas exported worldwide—and it achieved this dominance partly by keeping actors, writers, and production staff under permanent contract, controlling the entire pipeline from creation to broadcast through its network of newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and websites.

Cross ownership means a single group controlling different types of media simultaneously. The RBS Group, affiliated with TV Globo, operated in southern Brazil owning radio stations, television channels, major local newspapers, and internet portals. Commentators' opinions could propagate across all these platforms, making it "extremely easy to spread the point of view advocated by the group."

Most distinctively Brazilian was what Lima called monopoly "in cross"—the reproduction of cross-ownership patterns at the local level. Research in the early 1990s found this pattern in eighteen of Brazil's twenty-six states: a dominant television channel (usually Globo-affiliated), linked to the largest-circulation daily newspaper, linked to a network of radio stations that reproduced articles and editorial positions from the flagship newspaper.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) office in Brasília expressed concern about telecommunications regulations dating to 1962—drafted before the Brazilian Constitution of 1988 that established new expectations for media freedom—and the government's failure to create an independent regulatory agency. Attempts to establish such oversight were characterized by mainstream media as attacks on press freedom.

Regional Variations

The story plays out differently around the world.

In the Arab region, privatization has proceeded rapidly. The Arab States Broadcasting Union counted over 1,200 television stations broadcasting via satellite in 2012, of which only 133 were state-owned while 1,097 were private. This represents a dramatic shift from government-dominated media, but critics note that reduced state ownership has been accompanied by a rise in outlets with sectarian agendas—trading one form of concentrated power for another.

In Africa, private media outlets frequently maintain close ties to governments or individual politicians even without formal state ownership. Media houses owned by politically independent individuals have often struggled to survive, facing advertising boycotts from state agencies that punish critical coverage through economic pressure rather than direct censorship.

In Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, public service broadcasting—once seen as the foundation of media pluralism—has struggled for funding since 2012. The model of government-funded but editorially independent broadcasting, intended to provide a counterweight to commercial pressures, has been systematically weakened through budget cuts and political interference.

In Israel, Arnon Mozes built an empire spanning the most widely read Hebrew newspaper (Yediot Aharonot), the most widely read Russian-language paper (Vesty), the most popular Hebrew news website (Ynet), a stake in the cable television company HOT, and partial ownership of the company operating Israel's most popular television channel. One individual's preferences could shape the news diet of much of the nation.

New Complications

The traditional framework for thinking about media concentration assumed relatively clear boundaries between media companies and other industries. Those boundaries have blurred.

When Jeff Bezos, founder of the online retail giant Amazon, purchased the Washington Post in 2013, it raised novel questions. Amazon competes for government contracts. It lobbies on regulatory issues. It has interests in cloud computing, logistics, entertainment, and healthcare. Does a newspaper owned by someone with such diverse business interests have the same independence as a newspaper owned by someone whose only business is journalism?

The Post's case has been complicated. Initial concerns about compromised independence gave way to recognition that Bezos invested heavily in the paper's digital capabilities, helping it become one of the most influential online news sources. But the structural concerns about conflicts of interest never entirely disappeared—they just became harder to assess.

The Community Alternative

Not all media follows the corporate consolidation model.

Community-centered media ownership persists, particularly in isolated, rural, or economically disadvantaged areas, and especially in radio. Under this model, not-for-profit outlets are run and managed by the communities they serve rather than by distant corporate owners.

These operations typically survive on volunteer labor, small donations, and foundation grants rather than advertising revenue. They cover local school board meetings and high school sports that no national outlet would touch. They provide a platform for voices that commercial media ignores because there's no profit in serving them.

The model is precarious—perpetually underfunded, dependent on the energy of dedicated volunteers, vulnerable to burnout and technological change. But it represents a persistent alternative to the logic of consolidation, proof that other ownership structures remain possible even in an era of giants.

The Digital Disruption

The internet was supposed to change everything.

In some ways, it did. The barriers to starting a media outlet collapsed. Anyone with an internet connection could publish. Bloggers challenged newspaper editorial pages. YouTubers built audiences rivaling cable news. Podcasters reached millions without ever seeking a broadcasting license. The gatekeepers who controlled access to mass audiences found their gates suddenly irrelevant.

But concentration didn't disappear—it migrated. Instead of television networks and newspaper chains, the chokepoints became platforms. Facebook (now Meta) determines what news appears in feeds reaching billions of users. Google's algorithms shape what information people discover. TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, influences what an entire generation sees as newsworthy. These platforms don't produce journalism themselves, but they control the distribution channels that determine which journalism finds an audience.

This creates a different kind of concentration problem. Traditional media owners could be held accountable by national regulators, pressured by advertisers, and constrained by professional norms. Platform companies operate globally, claim to be neutral technology providers rather than editorial gatekeepers, and resist the regulatory frameworks designed for traditional media.

Why This Matters

The connection to the collapse of climate journalism at CBS News isn't coincidental. When media companies consolidate, they make decisions based on corporate priorities—advertising relationships, political calculations, cost efficiency—rather than public interest. Environmental coverage is expensive to produce, potentially alienating to advertisers with carbon footprints to protect, and politically controversial in ways that make corporate owners nervous.

A climate desk at a major network represents exactly the kind of specialized journalism that concentration tends to squeeze out. It requires dedicated reporters with expertise, time for investigation rather than quick turnaround, and institutional commitment to stories that may not generate immediate ratings. These are precisely the investments that corporate owners question when looking for costs to cut and controversies to avoid.

The broader pattern matters beyond any single beat. When fewer entities control more of the information landscape, the range of stories that get told narrows. Perspectives that challenge powerful interests become harder to sustain. The diversity that makes democratic deliberation meaningful erodes not through censorship but through the quieter mechanisms of ownership, economics, and institutional incentive.

Understanding media concentration isn't just an academic exercise. It's essential context for evaluating the news you consume, the information that shapes your understanding of the world, and the structural forces that determine which stories reach you and which never get told at all.