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6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

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21–30 of 146 posts

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#21

Isn't facebook already bigger than some of the firms mentioned in the articles? Or is it not counted as media?

Facebook creates no content whatsoever on its own. Its a crowd-funded link aggregator that earns revenue by ads.

But, their algo determines what everyone sees in their timeline!

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#22

Isn't facebook already bigger than some of the firms mentioned in the articles? Or is it not counted as media?

Media is a misnomer. Facebook and most new sources are advertising companies.

I think you'd have to agree on this. A corporation's main revenue stream is their business regardless of how diversified they are.

So Google is a search-driven advertising company.

Facebook is a social-networking-driven advertising company.

This all depends on what % of revenue is ad-based.

The other tech giants, Apple and Microsoft (Oracle, Samsung, SAP, Huawei, …) actually make most of their money selling combos of hardware, software, and services.

Perhaps Amazon is unusual in that it's a web-retailer? I just checked and AWS[0] only accounts for 8% of their revenue as of Feb. of this year.

It looks like we won't have an end to data-slurping until we somehow invalidate the ad revenue model.

[0] https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-web-services-posts-3-5b...

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#23

Scary how much of an effect how few can have on so many, just wait 'til they all are owned by one person (it'll happen)

When I see the polarization around health care in the media I find it really scary. That polarization is not a reflection of the citizens, that most want better health care for everyone, but of a few voices paid with a lot of dollars.

This same thing has happened before, like for example in Italy were Berlusconi abused the media to get favorable ratings. It is part of the tyrant-wanna-be cookbook.

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#24
A long time back, I bootstrapped a SaaS which was useful to my reporter friends. So I tried selling this to what I thought were small town local newspapers. I called up the editorial or business development contacts listed in the paper; whenever I got hold of them, I was redirected to Headquarters,which always was some sort conglomerate enterprise. That is when I learnt the hard way there is not such thing as a local or small newspaper: they are just local branches of conglomerates. I gave up because I did not possess the resources required for an enterprise sales cycle.

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Media is a misnomer. Facebook and most new sources are advertising companies.

I think you'd have to agree on this. A corporation's main revenue stream is their business regardless of how diversified they are. So Google is a search-driven advertising company. Facebook is a social-networking-driven advertising company. This all depends on what % of revenue is ad-based. The other tech giants, Apple and Microsoft (Oracle, Samsung, SAP, Huawei, …) actually make most of their money selling combos of…

AWS may be 8% of Amazon's revenue, but I believe I've read AWS is disproportionately profitable (compared to Amazon's retail segment). I'm not sure what the exact numbers are, but I think it you can make a reasonable argument that a company is defined by where its profits come from moreso than its revenue. I could see reasonable arguments the other way around too though.

EDIT: Thanks njarboe for catching confusing typo

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although you are correct, it is not a stretch to say that Facebook "controls" the media in deciding what to show, and how it is shown. In this way, you could say that "Facebook Controls [a significant portion] of the Media in America"

"Media Filter"?

When distribution is bottle necked to a single or few locations, the difference between content creation and content consumption blurs significantly. If its not distributed - its not seen. The same net effect as not ever being created.

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#28
A big difference between the US media and the rest of the developed world seems to be a complete absence of state-owned/subsidized/run media. To me, this seems much more problematic than the limited competition between corporate media.

In the US, it seems that news/stories/investigative reporting without some commercial interest to some company tends to go underreported. There is no money in being critical towards business (except extreme cases) for the media companies, who depend on good corporate relations for advertising income. Critical reporting towards businesses is not happening and government mistrust is promoted with nothing to balance this.

I think that a healthy media climate needs a mix of commercial and public journalism, that balance each other out.

As someone living in the Netherlands, there are several popular TV shows on public TV that, I think, could never exist in the US, because they would be seen as harming corporate interest. An example being a program investigating the background, production and health aspects of all kinds of food.

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#29
post #3

Except that media is much more than TV and newspapers. More and more people turn their backs on traditional media and get their information from a blend of many internet sites and witness videos on youtube and so on. And I only see this trend growing in the future.

Pew keeps tabs on this.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/15/state-of-the...

Re: 6 Corporations Control 90% of the Media in America

#30
post #7

I know hardly anyone likes the MSM (myself included), however is this stat so bad? Is it anything unusual for any other industry? Mature industries consolidate - its just a fundamental nature of the growth process. How many corporations control packaged chicken? cell phones? cement? No doubt the voices behind such "X mega-corps control Y" are in fact just advocating for legislation changes to mandate that they get a…

Yes it's bad. It doesn't really matter if it's "usual" or not, that's a different question. Most industries consolidate into large behemoths that are incredibly inefficient and only stay in business due to patents and buying up all the resources (e.g. cell-phone companies, comcast, certain chip-makers). Innovation dies. And you're right, it's happening right now with youtube defeating the these corporations, and that…

>But if one of these companies somehow bought youtube from google, that'd be bad, because consolidation (especially around distribution of information) is typically bad.

So youtube2.com can never be created? How long has Instagram been around?

Furthermore, your premise is financially flawed. How is the bankrupt NYT going to buy google?

The MSM is turning into the "horse buggy whip" situation. Its an old, out-dated industry that is dying. Who cares if eventually only 3 businesses controls "ACME Horse Buggy Whips" -- its not really something to panic about.

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