Today in the 1990s, one faces even greater mergers in the entertainment and information industries. Early on General Electric had bought RCA, and its subsidiary NBC. Capitol Cities took over ABC in the 1980s. And just recently Westinghouse purchased CBS--something it has been trying to do for decades.

Now Disney has bought out Capitol Cities-ABC. Furthermore, Time Warner is merging with Turner Broadcasting--a company which has TCI as a major shareholder. Such a merger would link the nation's largest cable operators. For the deal to be approved, however, TCI may have to divest itself of its interest in Turner. But even so, the size of these recent mergers--and their effect on the media industries--must give one pause.

Some sense of the implication of these mergers may be gained by noting some of the holdings of these media conglomerates. Westinghouse now owns the CBS network, which includes ownership of 14 television stations in major markets; and has partial ownership or is heavily involved with the Country Music Television network, and The Nashville Network; owns 21 FM stations and 18 AM stations. Some 1,900 radio stations carry some CBS programming, and 450 stations carry CBS News. The CBS Network News is responsible for such programs as The Evening News with Dan Rather, 60 Minutes, and Face the Nation. In addition to this, Westinghouse controls Group W Satellite Communications, as well as telephone and wireless communications systems.

General Electric owns NBC which includes nine television stations in major markets, NBC Radio (which is now controlled by Westwood One which also owns Mutual Broadcasting and RKO Radio); and the CNBC Cable network; and has partial ownership in American Movie Classics, MS/NBC, A&E, The History Channel, Prism, etc. The NBC Network News controls, among other programs, the Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, Meet the Press, and The Today Show. General Electric also controls the GE Americom Satellite Company and GE Capital Communications long distance telephone service.

Disney owns ABC, which owns 11 TV stations in major markets and has partial interest in Young Broadcasting which owns another eight television stations. ABC Radio owns 21 stations. The ABC Network News controls such programs as the World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, 20/20, and This Week with David Brinkley. Disney owns 11 newspapers; three music companies; the Disney channel, Disney Television, Touchstone Television, and has a major interest in A&E, the Lifetime Network, ESPN, and Buena Vista Television. It also owns six magazines. All this is in addition to owning five major motion picture operations and several online services.

Time Warner, one of whose major shareholders is TCI, controls Warner Brothers and Warner Brothers Animated film distributors. It owns cable franchises with almost 12 million subscribers; Cinemax and HBO cable networks; HBO Direct Broadcast; and has partial control of Comedy Central, CNN/SI, E, and the Sega channel. It controls Time-Life Video, HBO Home Video, and the Warner Home Video companies; and also owns Turner Home Entertainment, Domestic Home Video, and Turner Home Satellite. It owns over 20 magazines including Time, Fortune, Life, Sports Illustrated, and People; and such publishing houses as Sunset Books, Little, Brown & Co., Time-Life Books, Turner Publishing, and the Book-of-the Month Club. Among its program facilities are World Championship Wrestling, New Line Cinema, Turner Entertainment, and Turner Pictures. Its cable operations also include the TBS Superstation, Turner Classic Movies, TNT, the Cartoon Network; and through its ownership of CNN, it controls CNNfn, Headline News, CNN Radio, the CNN Airport Network, and CNN International.⁽¹⁾

There are also several major media conglomerates with more of a publishing focus. Among these is News Corporation, headed by Rupert Murdoch, which owns Harper-Collins, Basic Books, and Westview Press, among others; such newspapers as the New York Post, The Times of London, a great many other newspapers in the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, and has partial ownership of over 600 newspapers in the U.S. It owns many magazines, including TV Guide; the Fox Network, and Twentieth Century Fox Television. It owns fXM, Fox Sports, fX, the Fox News Channel, STAR Television, and many others. It owns 22 television stations, several movie studios, is a major CD publisher, and controls about 20 major Web sites. In 1995, it had an annual revenue of 9 billion dollars.

Another is Viacom which owns Simon & Schuster (which controls many educational publishing subsidiaries, including Prentice-Hall), Pocket Books, and many other book companies. It owns Paramount Pictures, and several major movie theater chains. Among the cable channels it owns are MTV, M2 Music Television, VH1, Nickelodeon, Showtime, and The Movie Channel. It has partial ownership of the Sci-Fi channel and Comedy Central; the UPN Network with 152 affiliates, Spelling Entertainment, and Paramount Television. It owns 11 broadcast television stations, 10 radio stations, and has a major interest in Blockbuster Video and Paramount Home Video. In 1995, its revenues were 11.3 billion dollars.⁽²⁾

Effects on Democracy

The result of these mergers is that the four major broadcast networks--CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX--are now all controlled by corporate conglomerates. Moreover these large-scale media companies control not only television, cable, radio, magazines, and newspapers, but the larger publishing houses as well. As Mark Crispin Miller points out: "Aside from Norton and Houghton Mifflin (the last two major independents), some university presses and a good number of embattled minors, America's trade publishers today belong to eight huge media conglomerates."⁽³⁾ And according to some analysts, ten or twelve companies could dominate all major media formats by the turn of the century.⁽⁴⁾

The effect of this is the increased commercialization of all of these media. Some have estimated that eventually half the programming on ABC, for example, could come from Disney and tie-ins between film, television shows, spin-off merchandise, and books are very likely to become a major trend. One might note, for example, how popular cartoon characters are now being used in advertising. As Ben Bagdikian, author of Media Monopoly puts it: "There is a dangerous change in the philosophy of the air waves to permit the growth of corporations and the de-regulation of the government to the point of decimating the consumer."⁽⁵⁾

Publishing. The effect of today's media merges on publishing is of great significance from the point of view of democracy and the circulation of ideas. Many have complained that when large conglomerates take over smaller firms the values once prevalent in these smaller companies change markedly as a corporate culture is introduced. One sees such complaints, for example, in Richard M. Clurman's book on the original takeover of Time Magazine by Warner Brothers, which is appropriately entitled To the end of Time. Similar thoughts are expressed by Dennis W. Mazzocco in his book, Networks of Power, on Capital Cities' takeover of ABC; as well as in Andre Schiffrin's article, "The Corporatization of Publishing." Often smaller businesses are interested in the quality of their product, as well as in making a profit. In publishing, the average profit used to be around 4% after taxes. It is true that these traditional publishers did produce a lot of mass appeal books--often of low quality. However, they used some of the profits from these books to subsidize the high quality books they were really interested in publishing--books that explored new directions and therefore might not sell very well. With today's push by the media conglomerates for a return of 12-15% from their publishing houses--reflective of their mass media subsidiaries--this can no longer be done. The culture of the bean counter has replaced that of the book lover. As Schiffrin puts it "The editorial process has . . . been skewed by the fact that at large companies, decisions about what to publish are made not by editors but by so-called publishing committees, in which the financial and marketing people play a pivotal role."⁽⁶⁾

Generally, television, radio, newspapers and magazines are aimed at the masses. As such they have to shy away from topics or ideas which may be deemed by some to be too controversial. Books, on the other hand, used to be aimed at a much smaller audience: thoughtful readers. They were therefore an outlet for new and controversial ideas. Even if the number of people who actually read the books was small, these ideas often reach a much larger audience. Eventually, these works might be seen as containing major new truths. But this takes time. If the media conglomerates direct the publishing houses which they control to print only books which are likely to have a large-scale audience and bring in large, immediate cash returns, the new ideas which used to be propagated by books may never have a chance to reach any audience at all. As Andre Schiffrin suggests, "new authors and new, critical viewpoints are increasingly finding it difficult to be published in the major houses."⁽⁷⁾

An interesting case in point is Mark Elliott's book, Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince, in which Elliott reveals Walt Disney's antisemitic attitudes and activities as an informant for the FBI during Hollywood's red scare in which many screen writers and actors were black listed. Bantam was supposed to publish the book, but in 1991 abandoned the project. Soon after that, Bantam released the "Disney Library," a popular series of books which were sold in supermarkets. Obviously, this latter book project was a lot more lucrative than Elliott's work would have been and their advertising campaigns might have been hampered by Elliott's work.

Another case occurred in 1993 when Robert Sam Anston's work on the Disney company was aborted by Simon & Schuster. Some see a link between this and the fact that Martin Davis, the head of Paramount who then owned Simon & Schuster, had been involved in the history of the Disney company and did not want some facts about the company to be made public.⁽⁸⁾

The political content of books that have been published recently has also been affected. Schiffrin notes that in a survey of new political books by Publishers Weekly, about 40 titles were listed, all but two of which had a right of center perspective. This marks a definite change since for a long time publishing had been characterized by more left of center books.⁽⁹⁾ The reasons why publishers make decisions about which books to publish are certainly difficult to track. What one can do is to note the nature of the books actually being published by the major houses, and any trends that might become apparent. It would be most helpful if some quantitative studies were done, noting any change in the content of books over time. Such studies would serve to back up the experience that many who have been in the industry for a long time have been noting.

Television News. One might argue that the mergers and tight contractual control in the movie and more general mass media industries involve only problems of economic concentration. But while this was limited to entertainment alone, this did not affect the functioning of democracy. However, with a limited number of people in charge of the film industry, and later the television industry, certain types of experiences were excluded. Blacks, Hispanics, women, gays and others were often not presented in the most favorable light--if, indeed, they were presented at all. Furthermore, TV tended to focus on upper middle class life styles, paying scant attention to the poor and working class. In fact, for many years the only situation comedy or other series on TV that involved working class people was Jackie Gleason's "The Honeymooners."

The situation becomes much more problematic from the point of view of freedom of the press and the functioning of democracy, however, when the entertainment industry becomes intertwined with the information industry. With TV as the major source of news for most people today, questions arise as to the effects of conglomerate concentration in the television industry on news programming. Early in television history, news divisions were kept separate from the general programming divisions. However, that independence was soon lost, and TV news programs have had to compete for ratings. Thus entertainment values often become more important than informational values in deciding which news stories are to be aired, and how they are to be presented. This indeed is dangerous in a democracy.

Moreover, the type of elite control which occurs with economic concentration in the media industry can directly affect the news itself. For example, William Casey, Director of the CIA, was a major stockholder in Capital Cities which originally took over ABC. As a result of his influence and that of other officials, certain stories that were sensitive to the CIA were not covered and the way other news stories were covered was sometimes affected.⁽¹⁰⁾ In addition, with TCI controlling the cable TV systems in many markets, it has the ability to limit the type of information that is available in many people's homes. It has been suggested that TCI is now contemplating offering three conservative-leaning channels in some markets, and eliminating the only liberal-leaning one it carries.

Because of fears of legal action, some TV stations avoid certain news or advertising. A public interest group wanted to air an advertisement in favor of health care reform, noting that Pizza Hut was obligated by foreign governments to provide health care coverage for its employees who work in these countries--all without any ill economic effects. However, the company does not provide such coverage for its employees in America. Because Pizza Hut threatened to sue, TV stations and cable networks refused to air this advertisement--even though they presented advertisements opposing health care reform.

There is also a conflict of interest when corporations with a direct stake in governmental policy own all of the outlets through which the public is informed. General Electric and Westinghouse, which now own NBC and CBS respectively, are major suppliers of military weapons overseas. This may well lead to a downplay of coverage of arm sales to foreign countries, including Indonesia and China. Moreover, one of the reasons that Disney's films have been so successful on the international market is that they are apolitical in nature. There is some concern that Disney's ownership of ABC may lead the network to play down political controversy as it pays more attention to entertainment values--and profits--than to news values.⁽¹¹⁾

Furthermore, when CBS was looking to be purchased by Westinghouse, a decision was made not to air a story on 60 Minutes which would have exposed some tobacco industry practices, possibly including the manipulation of the nicotine contents in cigarettes. Because CBS was afraid potential legal action might make it less attractive to Westinghouse, this segment was not aired at the time. Thus, not only is there the potential of concentration in ownership in the media industries affecting the types of information Americans receive, one can point to specific instances where this has already occurred. At the present time, such interference is seen as wrong and is at least sometimes reported. However, it is easy to see these practices becoming routine and no longer viewed as newsworthy. Moreover, such influence often involves stories not being covered--in other words, non-events. And it is very difficult to research events that have not occurred; or stories that were not covered, but should have been.

1. The information above was taken from a chart entitled "The National Entertainment State," The Nation, June 3, 1996, which accompanies a number of articles, including: Mark Crispin Miller, "Free the Media."

Another interesting chart, "The Titans of Telecom," may be found in Business Week, April 8, 1996. This chart accompanies Catherine Arnst with Michael Mandel, "The Coming Telescramble: Deregulation is launching a $1 trillion digital free-for-all," and a number of other articles told from more of a business perspective.

2. The information above was taken from a chart entitled "The Media Nation: Publishing" which accompanied Mark Crispin Miller, "The Crushing Power of Big Publishing," The Nation, March 17, 1997.

3. Mark Crispin Miller "The Crushing Power of Big Publishing," p. 11.

4. See: Charles Carbone, "Media Monopoly Makers," Multinational Monitor, Sept. 1995.

5. Charles Carbone, "Media Monopoly Makers," p. 8.

6. Andre Schiffrin, "The Corporatization of Publishing," The Nation, June 3, 1996. p. 29.

7. Andre Schiffrin, "The Corporatization of Publishing," p. 29.

8. See: Mark Crispin Miller, " The Crushing Power of Big Publishing," p. 17.

9. See: Andre Schiffrin, "The Corporatization of Publishing," p. 32.

10. See: Dennis W. Mazzocco, Networks of Power: Corporate TV's Threat to Democracy (Boston: South End Press, 1994), pp. 96-98.

11. See: Charles Carbone, "The Media Monopoly Makers."