A specter now haunts the world: a global commercial
media system dominated by a small number of super-powerful, mostly
U.S.-based transnational media corporations. It is a system that works
to advance the cause of the global market and promote commercial
values, while denigrating journalism and culture not conducive to the
immediate bottom line or long-run corporate interests. It is a
disaster for anything but the most superficial notion of democracy--a
democracy where, to paraphrase John Jay's maxim, those who own the
world ought to govern it.
The global commercial system is a very recent
development. Until the 1980s, media systems were generally national in
scope. While there have been imports of books, films, music and TV
shows for decades, the basic broadcasting systems and newspaper
industries were domestically owned and regulated. Beginning in the
1980s, pressure from the IMF, World Bank and U.S. government to
deregulate and privatize media and communication systems coincided
with new satellite and digital technologies, resulting in the rise of
transnational media giants.
How quickly has the global media system emerged?
The two largest media firms in the world, Time Warner and Disney,
generated around 15 percent of their income outside of the United
States in 1990. By 1997, that figure was in the 30 percent range. Both
firms expect to do a majority of their business abroad at some point
in the next decade.
The global media system is now dominated by a first
tier of nine giant firms. The five largest are Time Warner (1997
sales: $24 billion), Disney ($22 billion), Bertelsmann ($15 billion),
Viacom ($13 billion), and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation ($11
billion). Besides needing global scope to compete, the rules of thumb
for global media giants are twofold: First, get bigger so you dominate
markets and your competition can't buy you out. Firms like Disney and
Time Warner have almost tripled in size this decade.
Second, have interests in numerous media
industries, such as film production, book publishing, music, TV
channels and networks, retail stores, amusement parks, magazines,
newspapers and the like. The profit whole for the global media giant
can be vastly greater than the sum of the media parts. A film, for
example, should also generate a soundtrack, a book, and merchandise,
and possibly spin-off TV shows, CD-ROMs, video games and amusement
park rides. Firms that do not have conglomerated media holdings simply
cannot compete in this market.
The first tier is rounded out by TCI, the largest
U.S. cable company that also has U.S. and global media holdings in
scores of ventures too numerous to mention. The other three first-tier
global media firms are all part of much larger industrial corporate
powerhouses: General Electric (1997 sales: $80 billion), owner of NBC;
Sony (1997 sales: $48 billion), owner of Columbia & TriStar
Pictures and major recording interests; and Seagram (1997 sales: $14
billion), owner of Universal film and music interests. The media
holdings of these last four firms do between $6 billion and $9 billion
in business per year. While they are not as diverse as the media
holdings of the first five global media giants, these four firms have
global distribution and production in the areas where they compete.
And firms like Sony and GE have the resources to make deals to get a
lot bigger very quickly if they so desire.
Behind these firms is a second tier of some three
or four dozen media firms that do between $1 billion and $8 billion
per year in media-related business. These firms tend to have national
or regional strongholds or to specialize in global niche markets.
About one-half of them come from North America, including the likes of
Westinghouse (CBS), the New York Times Co., Hearst, Comcast and
Gannett. Most of the rest come from Europe, with a handful based in
East Asia and Latin America.
In short, the overwhelming majority (in revenue
terms) of the world's film production, TV show production, cable
channel ownership, cable and satellite system ownership, book
publishing, magazine publishing and music production is provided by
these 50 or so firms, and the first nine firms thoroughly dominate
many of these sectors. By any standard of democracy, such a
concentration of media power is troubling, if not unacceptable.
But that hardly explains how concentrated and
uncompetitive this global media power actually is. In addition, these
firms are all actively engaged in equity joint ventures where they
share ownership of concerns with their "competitors" so as
to reduce competition and risk. Each of the nine first-tier media
giants, for example, has joint ventures with, on average, two-thirds
of the other eight first-tier media giants. And the second tier is
every bit as aggressive about making joint ventures. (See chart below
for the extent of joint ventures between media giants.)
We are the world
In some ways, the emerging global commercial media
system is not an entirely negative proposition. It occasionally
promotes anti-racist, anti-sexist or anti-authoritarian messages that
can be welcome in some of the more repressive corners of the world.
But on balance the system has minimal interest in journalism or public
affairs except for that which serves the business and upper-middle
classes, and it privileges just a few lucrative genres that it can do
quite well--like sports, light entertainment and action movies--over
other fare. Even at its best the entire system is saturated by a
hyper-commercialism, a veritable commercial carpetbombing of every
aspect of human life. As the C.E.O. of Westinghouse put it
(Advertising Age, 2/3/97), "We are here to serve advertisers.
That is our raison d'etre."
Some once posited that the rise of the Internet
would eliminate the monopoly power of the global media giants. Such
talk has declined recently as the largest media, telecommunication and
computer firms have done everything within their immense powers to
colonize the Internet, or at least neutralize its threat. The global
media cartel may be evolving into a global communication cartel.
But the entire global media and communication
system is still in flux. While we are probably not too far from
crystallization, there will likely be considerable merger and joint
venture activity in the coming years. Indeed, by the time you read
this, there may already be some shifts in who owns what or whom.
What is tragic is that this entire process of
global media concentration has taken place with little public debate,
especially in the U.S., despite the clear implications for politics
and culture. After World War II, the Allies restricted media
concentration in occupied Germany and Japan because they noted that
such concentration promoted anti-democratic, even fascist, political
cultures. It may be time for the United States and everyone else to
take a dose of that medicine. But for that to happen will require
concerted effort to educate and organize people around media issues.
That is the task before us.
Corporate profiles available at the Other
Eyes website.
