[This represents a bit of a departure from the traditional format of my ongoing “Media Deconsolidiation Series,” but you will see how it ties in…]

So, some guy from the (Un)Free Press — the activist group that wants to regulate every facet of the media and broadband universe — has created a scary looking chart about “Information Control” [seen below]. It’s based loosely on the Periodic Table of Elements, you know, to give it the aura of science and fact. In reality, it’s just another silly scare tactic that tells us very little about the true nature of our modern media marketplace.

The chart is accompanied by the typical Free Press gloom-and-doom rhetoric about the unfolding media apocalypse. “Nearly everything you see, hear and read that isn’t from a friend — whether on TV, the radio, or even on the Web — comes from a for-profit gatekeeper.”  And then comes the obligatory A.J. Liebling quote about how “Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one,” followed quickly by the typical punch line about how just a handful of companies (in this case 55 of ’em) are puppeteering all our thoughts in America today:

Combined, these 55 powerful media and telecommunications companies raked in total revenues in excess of $700 billion in 2007. Together they own over 540 TV stations, 2000 radio stations, 430 newspapers, 230 magazines, and 80 major cable channels in the United States. They provide paid TV service to approximately 52 million subscribers and broadband Internet service to over 57 million subscribers. They’re the bottlenecks through which our news, our entertainment, and our political discourse must travel. What they want to promote becomes prominent; what they suppress stays out of the mainstream. As such, these companies are the elements of information control.

Oh my God! We are all just brainwashed sheep!

Except we’re not. It amazes me how these “information control” and “media monopoly” myths keep getting widespread circulation. But the first thing to note is how the media reformistas can’t get even their story straight when it comes to how many “monopolists” are supposedly out there today. As I noted in my 2005 book, Media Myths: Making Sense of the Debate over Media Ownership, the critics seem to just pull their numbers out of a hat. Some say as few as 3 companies control everything. Others says 5 or 6. Still others say it might be a few dozen. And now this guy says its 55. Hey, that’s progress that even the Free Press should love!

Regardless of the number, does this really represent the totality of our modern media universe? Do those 55 companies really “own most of the 21st-century presses in America” as the “Info Control” website states? Answer: NOT. EVEN. CLOSE.  Here are the facts. [I happened to have compiled them for a PFF special report entitled Media Metrics: The True State of the Modern Media Marketplace to debunk myths just like this.]

Continue reading →

SHARE: 23 comments