Page 122 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Conglomerat on and Med a Monopol es | 101

and acquisitions will be swallowed. Ted Turner’s pursuit of both broadcast net-
works and motion picture studios before Turner Broadcasting became part of
Time Warner in 1996 is testament to this way of thinking. Turner summarized
the goal in simple terms: “The only way for media companies to survive is to
own everything up and down the media chain. . . . Big media today wants to own
the faucet, pipeline, water, and the reservoir. The rain clouds come next.”

ChangEs in ThE naTurE oF CongLomEraTion
The change in the corporate control of the three major broadcast networks—
ABC, CBS, and NBC—illustrates how conglomeration transformed media assets
since the 1980s. In 1985, two of the networks were still linked to the individuals
who created them, ABC and Leonard Goldenson and CBS and William Paley,
while NBC remained in the hands of the corporation that launched its radio
network in the 1920s, RCA. At that time, the networks remained the core busi-
nesses of their corporate parents, and the news divisions supported the public
interest mandate that came with broadcast licenses. In 2005, all three shared
ownership with a major motion picture studio—ABC and Walt Disney, CBS and
Paramount Pictures, and NBC and Universal Pictures—and the news divisions
were important revenue centers. These combinations raise various concerns, not
the least of which is the coverage of the conglomerates themselves. Michael Eis-
ner once put it in simple terms: he did not want ABC covering Disney.
Not all combinations prove to be successful and some argue that modern
conglomerates are too unwieldy to react to changes in the marketplace. The
most notable failure is the merger of America Online and Time Warner in 2001.

Motion PiCture and teleVision CongloMeration, 1 – 00

1985—News Corp. acquires Twentieth Century Fox.
1986—Capital Cities and ABC merge to create Capital Cities/ABC Inc.; General Electric
acquires NBC.
1989—Time Inc. and Warner Communications merge to create Time Warner Inc.; Sony
acquires Columbia Pictures.
1990—Matsushita Industries acquires Universal Pictures.
1993—Walt Disney Co. acquires Miramax Films.
1994—Viacom Inc. acquires Paramount Pictures.
1995—Seagram Co. Ltd. acquires Universal Pictures.
1996—Walt Disney Co. acquires Capital Cities/ABC Inc.; Time Warner Inc. acquires
New Line Cinema.
2000—Viacom Inc. acquires CBS Inc.; Vivendi SA acquires Universal Pictures.
2001—Time Warner and America Online merge to create AOL Time Warner.
2004—General Electric and Vivendi Universal merge assets to create NBC Universal.
2006—Viacom and CBS split and form two corporations, with Sumner Redstone retaining
majority ownership of each of them; Viacom Inc. acquires DreamWorks SKG.