Page 123 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

10 | Conglomerat on and Med a Monopol es

The melding of old media and new media did not reap the promised rewards
and AOL was dropped from the corporate letterhead in 2003, but it was not just
the size of Time Warner that was its undoing as pundits point to various prob-
lems. And some changes are more cosmetic. In 2006, Viacom split its assets into
two corporations, Viacom Inc. and CBS Corp., but Sumner Redstone remained
in control of both of them, so ownership and control did not change hands.
The rationale for the split was not the size of the conglomerate but the price of
Viacom stock, with Redstone and others contending that the true value of the
motion picture and cable television assets would be realized after the split from
the slower-growing broadcast interests.

CongLomEraTion: muLTiPLiCiTy or DivErsiTy
When Ben Bagdikian published the first edition of The Media Monopoly in
1983, he estimated that ownership of most of the major media was consolidated
in 50 national and multinational conglomerates. When he published The New
Media Monopoly two decades later, Bagdikian concluded that the number had
dwindled to just five. The degree of conglomeration in media industries is evi-
dent across the board. In 1985, there were six major motion picture studios and
three major broadcast television networks, and nine different conglomerates
controlled one of each. In 2005, the number of broadcast networks had doubled
with the addition of Fox, The WB and UPN, but the number of corporations
that owned a studio or network had dwindled to just six. Those corporations—
Disney, NBC Universal, News Corp., Sony, Time Warner, and Viacom—also
held an ownership interest in over 75 percent of the cable and satellite channels
with over 60 million subscribers, as well as the most prominent premium movie
channels, HBO and Showtime.
Therein rests an important battleground in this debate. Since the 1980s, Con-
gress and the FCC relaxed ownership rules based on the argument that increases
in outlets rendered such regulations needless interference in the marketplace.
When the FCC announced the relaxation of various rules in 2003, chair Michael
Powell argued that the “explosion of new media outlets” demanded change so
the commission did not “perpetuate the graying rules of a bygone black and
white era.” There is little question that the number of outlets has increased. Less
certain is whether this growth resulted in more independent voices and diverse
viewpoints.
Central to this debate is the distinction between multiplicity and diversity,
since it is possible to increase the number of available outlets without a parallel
expansion in the range of ideas and values in the public commons. The rise of
cable news services, for example, diluted the influence of the broadcast network
news divisions and created the impression of abundance. This could be quite
significant, since the dissemination of news and information from diverse and
antagonistic sources is considered a pillar of self-government in democratic so-
cieties. When one traces the ownership and control of the cable news services,
however, the promised excess is nowhere to be found. The five prominent cable
news services—CNN, CNN Headline News, CNBC, MSNBC, and Fox News