Media Mergers a Threat to Community News?

The policies set by the U.S. federal government on media ownership have tremendous impact on community media that traditionally has played an important role in fostering community awareness and involvement. For local municipalities and constituencies, the on-the-ground media ownership rules ultimately boils down to the question of how diverse the opinions expressed in local media will be and how representative of topical issues the local news will be.

The past twenty years have seen an unprecedented number of media mergers spanning TV, radio, film, publishing and online holdings. An oligopoly has emerged whereby a half-dozen massive corporations control enormous numbers of media outlets. In 2006, combined revenues from these companies were larger than many countries - even individually, their economic might is daunting:
- Viacom ($11.5 billion in revenue) and owner of Atom Entertainment, BET, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, Paramount Pictures, Paramount Home Entertainment, publishing company Famous Music and music game developer Harmonix, in addition to the Viacom 18 joint venture with the Indian media company Global Broadcast news.
- CBS Corporation ($14.3 billion in revenue) owns the CBS Television Distribution Group, CBS Television Network, the CW joint venture with Time Warner, Showtime, Simon & Schuster book publishers, as well as 27 television stations and CBS Radio, Inc, (composed of 140 stations across the country).
- News Corporation ($25.3 billion in revenue) controls the Fox Broadcasting Company (including television and cable networks such as Fox, Fox Business Channel, National Geographic and FX), 35 television stations, print publications including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, TVGuide, and the magazines Barron's and SmartMoney, HarperCollins book publishing, film production companies Blue Sky Studios, Fox Searchlight Pictures, and 20th Century Fox, MarketWatch.com and other web holdings, and non-media holdings including the National Rugby League.
- Walt Disney Company ($34.3 billion in revenues) and owner of the ABC Television Network, A&E, ESPN, the Disney Channel, Lifetime, SOAPnet, 227 radio stations, multiple music and book publishing companies, media production companies Miramax, Touchstone, Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios, the cellular service Disney Mobile, and numerous theme parks.
- Time Warner ($44.2 Billion in revenues) owns the America Online (AOL), Cartoon Network, Cinemax, CNN, the CW (a joint venture with CBS), HBO, MapQuest, Moviefone, Netscape, TBS, TNT, Warner Bros. Pictures, Castle Rock, and New Line Cinema, as well as over 150 magazines, including Time, Cooking Light, Marie Claire and People. Time Warner Cable also controls roughly 20% of all cable broadband subscribers and increased its subscriber base by 3.5 million (to roughly 15 million total) with its acquisition of Adelphia with Comcast.
- General Electric ($164.3 billion in revenues) has media-related holdings including Bravo and the Sci-Fi Channels, Focus Features, MSNBC, television networks NBC and Telemundo, Universal Pictures, and 26 additional television stations in the United States.

In opposition to these massive media conglomerates is a growing coalition of civil rights, public interest, consumer, and local media organizations. According to Ben Scott, Policy Director for Free Press, media conglomerization "is not a left-right issue -- it unites a wide variety of organizations concerned about the impact of concentrated media on the diversity of opinion a democracy requires." As it turns out, in addition to "the usual suspects" that one might expect to join the fight against big media (for example, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Free Press, Independent Press Association, National Federation of Community Broadcasters), everyone from the American Federation of Musicians to the National Council of Churches, and from Rainbow Push to the National Hispanic Media Coalition has joined the "Stop Big Media" Campaign (www.stopbigmedia.com).

The only requirement to joining Stop Big Media is agreement with the principles of the coalition. The core element of the campaign is a belief that "a free and vibrant media full of diverse, local and competing voices is the lifeblood of America's democracy." And the straightforward goal of Stop Big Media is to "