The Global Media GiantsThe nine firms that dominate the worldBy Robert W. McChesneyspecter now haunts the world: a global commer-cial media system dominated by a small numberof super-powerful, mostly U.S.-based transna-tional media corporations. It is a system that works toadvance the cause of the global market and promotecommercial values, while denigrating journalism andculture not conducive to the immediate bottom line orlong-run corporate interests. It is a disaster for anythingbut the most superficial notion of democracy-a democ-racy where, to paraphrase John Jay’s maxim, those whoown the world ought to govern it.The global commercial system is a very recent devel-opment. Until the 198Os, media systems were generallynational in scope. While there have been imports ofbooks, films, music and TV shows for decades, the basicbroadcasting systems and newspaper industries were do-mestically owned and regulated. Beginning in the 198Os,pressure from the IMF, World Bank and U.S. governmentto deregulate and privatize media and communicationsystems coincided with new satellite and digital tech-nologies, resulting in the rise of transnational mediagiants.How quickly has the global media system emerged?The two largest media firms in the world, Tie Warnerand Disney, generated around 15 percent of their incomeoutside of the United States in 1990. By 1997, that figurewas in the 30 percent-35 percent range. Both firms expectto do a majority of their business abroad at some pointin the next decade.The global media system in now dominated by a firsttier of nine giant firms. The five largest are Time Warner(1997 sales: $24 billion), Disney ($22 billion), Bertelsmann($15 billion), Viacom ($13 billion), and Rupert Murdoch’sNews Corporation ($11 billion). Besides needing globalscope to compete, the rules of thumb for global mediagiants are twofold: First, get bigger so you dominatemarkets and your competition can’t buy you out. Firms,like Disney and Time Warner have almost tripled in sizethis decade.Second, have interests in numerous media industriesQch as film production, book publishing, music, TVchannels and networks, retail stores, amusement parks,magazines, newspapers and the like. The profit wholefor the global media giant can be vastly greater than thesum of the media parts. A film, for example, should alsogenerate a soundtrack, a book, and merchandise, andpossibly spin-off TV shows, CD-ROMs, video games andamusement park rides. Firms that do not have conglom-erated media holdings simply cannot compete in thismarket.The first tier is rounded out by TCI, the largest U.S.cable company that also has U.S. and global media hold-ings in scores of ventures too numerous to mention. Theother three first-tier global media firms are all part ofmuch larger industrial corporate powerhouses: GeneralElectric (1997 sales: $80 billion), owner of NBC; Sony(1997 sales: $48 billion), owner of Columbia & T&tarPictures and major recording interests; and Seagram(1997 sales: $14 billion), owner of Universal film and mu-sic interests. The media holdings of these last four firmsdo between $6 billion and $9 billion in business per year.While they are not as diverse as the media holdings ofthe first five global media giants, these four firms haveglobal distribution and production in the areas wherethey compete. And firms like Sony and GE have the re-sources to make deals to get a lot bigger very quickly ifthey so desire.Behind these firms is a second tier of some three orfour dozen media firms that do between $1 billion and$8 billion per year in media-related business. These firmstend to have national or regional strongholds or to spe-cialize in global niche markets. About one-half of themcome from North America, including the likes of West-inghouse (CBS), the New York Times Co., Hearst, Com-cast and Gannett. Most of the rest come from Europe,with a handful based in East Asia and Latin America.In short, the overwhelming majority (in revenueterms) of the world’s film production, TV show produc-tion, cable channel ownership, cable and satellite systemownership, book publishing, magazine publishing andmusic production is provided by these 50 or so firms,and the first nine firms thoroughly dominate many ofFrom Extra, Novembdkeder 1997. pp. 11-18. Q 1997 by Robert W. Mcchesnev. Reorinted bv Dermiainn1 + LIVING WITH MEDIAthese sectors. By any standard of democracy, such a con-centration of media power is troubling, if not unacceptable.But that hardly explains how concentrated and un-competitive this global media power actually is. In ad-dition, these firms are alI actively engaged in equity jointventures where they share ownership of concerns withtheir “competitors” so as to reduce competition and riskEach of the nine first-tier media giants, for example, hasjoint ventures with, on average, two-thirds of the othereight first-tier media giants. And the second tier is everybit as aggressive about making joint ventures. (See chartbelow for the extent of joint ventures between mediagiants.)We are the worldIn some ways, the emerging global commercial mediasystem is not an entirely negative proposition. It occa-sionally promotes anti-racist, anti-sexist or anti-authori-tarian messages that can be welcome in some of the morerepressive comers of the world. But on balance the sys-tem has minimal interest in journalism or public affairsexcept for that which serves the business and upper-mid-dle classes, and it privileges just a few lucrative genresthat it can do auite well-like sports, light entertainmentarrd action make-ver other-fare. Even at its best theentire system is saturated by a hyper-commercialism,veritable commercial carpetbombing of every aspect chuman life. As the C.E.O. of Westinghouse put it (Advertising Age, 2/3/97), “We are here to serve adverbsers. That is our r&son d’etre.”Some once posited that the rise of the Internet woulceliminate the monopoly power of the global media giants. Such talk has declined recently as the largest mediatelecommunication and computer firms have doneeverything within their immense powers to colonize thtInternet, or at least neutralize its threat. The global mediccartel may be evolving into a global communication cartelBut the entire global media and communication sys.tern is still in flux. While we are probably not too farfrom crystallization, there wiIl likely be considerablemerger and joint venture activity in the coming years,Indeed, by the time you read