Media Conglomerates

Since 2006 there have been eight media companies who control and provide a great majority of the news and media that people receive.  These companies are Disney (market value: $72.8 billion), AOL-Time Warner (market value: $90.7 billion), Viacom (market value: $53.9 billion), General Electric (owner of NBC, market value: $390.6 billion), News Corporation (market value: $56.7 billion), Yahoo! (market value: $40.1 billion), Microsoft (market value: $306.8 billion), Google (market value: $154.6 billion).  Each conglomerate also controls many subsidiaries.  Many unique insights may be gained from observing the good and bad aspects of media conglomerates.

Disney is one of the primary examples of a media conglomerate.  It is composed of the divisions of Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, Disney Music Group, Disney-ABC Television Group, Walt Disney Theatrical, Radio Disney, Disney Interactive Media Group, Disney Consumer Products, and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.  Disney’s subsidiaries are Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Entertainment, Playdom, Tapulous, ESPN, ABC Inc., and A&E Television Networks.

There are several benefits to these large corporations, especially in the case of Disney.  By bringing together the resources of several divisions, a media conglomerate can market and sell a product more effectively and in more ways than if each division acted alone, and no company does this as well as Disney.  Whenever Disney’s writers come up with the next big thing, every division will be selling a piece of it.  There will be a movie, a TV show, songs, a theatrical version, toys, and maybe a ride at Disney World or another park.  The benefits of a well organized and effective company is what allowed many corporations to grow to their size in the first place.

It goes without saying, however, that there are many problems, potential problems, and abuses that may or do result from the oligopoly of media conglomerates.   


“Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility” 
                                                                   --Ambrose Bierce, Devil’s Dictionary


There are certain faults to large companies, and ones specific to media corporations.  News sources rarely report on themselves and even less so in a negative light.  For example; ABC, which is owned by Disney, which manufactures toys, would probably hesitate to report about child labor being used to manufacture toys in China.  This is further complicated when several CEOs sit on the boards of not one, but many companies.  The worst aspect, perhaps, is that in large profit driven conglomerates, real news and journalistic integrity takes a backseat compared to the almighty dollar.  More so today than ever before, our “news” is often a form of cherry picked, and near manufactured entertainment.

When looking at the good and bad aspects of anything, it is especially important not to become too cynical.  Often we give too much credit to the dark, intentional, machinations of men and too little to the slippery slope of indifference, forgetfulness, and incompetence.  I do not propose that Disney or any company is intentionally manipulating the American public for nefarious purposes, but I am not bold in saying that many a wrong has been committed, many a truth manipulated, not “done in those ‘sordid dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint” but with a small sigh, an utterance of “just this once” and “it’s not that bad.”  What media conglomerates are today are organizations of people, with human virtues and failings, and it is by those aspects of humanity that they act as forces of good, evil, and of things that are neither.