Page 126 - Culture Society and the Media

116 CONTROL OF THE COMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRIES
of diversification. In addition to operating one of Britain’s five network
television companies for example, the Granada Group Ltd own the country’s
second largest television rental chain and the fourth largest paperback publishing
group, and have interests in cinema, bingo clubs, motorway service areas, and
music publishing. Similarly, the Midlands contractor ATV has branched out into
the music business, film production and cinema exhibition, while London
Weekend Television has recently bought the major publishing house of
Hutchinson with its successful Arrow paperbacks division. Other leading
communications conglomerates like EMI, were built on the profits from other
bases in the post-war boom in leisure and entertainment spending.
Although EMI was the dominant force in the British record industry
throughout the 1950s, its activities remained concentrated in the music business
and certain sectors of electronics. Then in the early 1960s the company signed
The Beatles and a clutch of other beat groups, and reaped enormous profits from
the subsequent pop explosion. This sudden inflow of cash provided the base for a
massive programme of diversification, notably into the film and television
industries. In 1966 EMI bought the Shipman and King cinema chain, and two
years later they launched their bid for Associated British Pictures. Their success
brought them another 270 cinemas, the Elstree Studios, a major film distribution
company, and a quarter share in Thames Television, the company that had
secured the lucrative London weekday franchise in 1967. By 1970, EMI had
bought up sufficient extra shares to give them a controlling edge over their other
main partner in Thames, Rediffusion (a subsidiary of a major industrial
conglomerate, British Electric Traction). EMI continued to diversify throughout
the 1970s, buying bingo halls, hotels, sports clubs, and a range of other leisure
facilities. In December 1979 however, the company was itself taken over by
another leading conglomerate, Thorn Electrical Industries, and a new corporation
Thorn-EMI formed.
At the present time, then, the communications industries are increasing
dominated by conglomerates with significant stakes in a range of major media
markets giving them an unprecedented degree of potential control over the range
and direction of cultural production. Moreover, the effective reach of these
corporations is likely to extend still further during the 1980s, due to their
strategic command over the new information and video technologies (see, for
example, Robins and Webster, 1979). Nor does their influence end there. As the
recent history of the BBC illustrates, in addition to the market power they wield
directly, the major media corporations increasingly structure the business
environment within which public communications organizations operate.
The BBC is one of the largest culture-producing institutions in Britain, and
through its national television and radio networks and its regional and local
studios, its products reach most members of the population on most days of the
year. However, it is misleading to see the BBC as an equal or countervailing
force to the leading communications conglomerates. On the contrary, their
activities and goals are determinant and exercise a significant influence on the