the process of media industry conglomeration

8/2/2019 The Process of Media Industry Conglomeration

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-process-of-media-industry-conglomeration 1/6

The Process

of

Media

Industry

C

O

N

G

L

O

M

E

R

A

T

I

O

N



The Process of Media

Industry Conglomeration

Najib Altawell



The Process of Media Industry

Conglomeration

Introduction

The process of media conglomeration has involved the regrouping of multinational

companies, which as a result, has created a power of considerable proportions. This

means that these companies have the control of the local and the international market.

Their control over the market has been accelerated with the launching of satellites and

other development in the media, such as in the field of digital press, digital music and

digital videos.

One of the main issues is related to the effects of the Western media; particularly the

American media on other cultures, as it continuously dominate the international market.

This issue raises doubts about diversity of choice, quality and competition. With the

development and scope of satellite technology, it can be argued that the local culture of

many countries, in particular the underdeveloped ones, has become the main victim as a

result of this kind of media domination in a world of faster global communications. The

local programmers and film production in the underdeveloped countries have suffered

badly as the international companies sell their media products so cheaply that the local

producers cannot compete with them.

From the above, we can see that we have underdeveloped countries almost entirely

dependent on cheap western programmes to fill the time on their television screens. The

irony is that money was made available to the television companies in these

underdeveloped countries so that they could buy the American media products instead of

the help needed to produce their own Programmes.



The Global Market

With the launching of the satellite communication systems, the global market assumed

different dimensions. The world suddenly became much smaller than used to be, smaller

in the sense of the scope of and access of media mass communication, consequently the

phrase ‘global village’ became the expression of the day used by the media regularly they

wanted to refer to the world as a whole.

As a result, the individual nation market became the market for any nation who

possessed the latest technology in commercial satellite communication. This situation

brought life back to all old western media products, especially the American products.Therefore, the selling in this situation increased at an incredible rate selling all old

programmes and movies, which no one in the West wanted to watch, to many African

and Asian countries.

In this new era of communication, there is a huge market, a market to fill the time on

every television channel around the world – the dawn of the conglomeration market.

The underdeveloped world has nothing to compete with this. To produce their own films

or their own programmes is too expensive in comparison with what is available on the

international market. Therefore, it is not surprising to see on TV in a small African

country an American soap opera made more than 20 years ago.

The big international companies are growing bigger every day as the number of their

viewers increase all over the world. What this mean is that a few media corporations

from the West are controlling the whole international market, which is one of the main

issues related to media conglomeration.

One positive argument for the process of conglomeration is that the free markets will

bring competition which consequently makes the diversity of the media products a reality

for all the customers around the globe. This is what the owners of the big corporation

believe, such as Mr Murdoch.

The local people would prefer to see on their TV channel the reflection of their own dailylife, rather than what is/was happening in faraway places (e.g. a high proportion of

Zimbabwe people watched ‘Root’). It appears that the danger in a situation like this one

is that the people in that African country, and especially the new generation, see Western

media production as a model which should be copied in their own daily life, as this

documentary showed us that the saturation of American television programmes causes

appetite for it. As a result of this, the local culture, which should be protected, is

destroyed gradually.



Power and Control

The power and control exercised by conglomeration is an important issue as the affects

the opportunity of speech. Fair competition between businesses and freedom of speech

in a democratic society is an important factor for progress within any culture.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with the Western media products. The big

corporations want other countries to depend on their products.

Access to media, therefore, is limited to a few companies and consequently the choice is

limited. For example, the local producer in any underdeveloped country will be always

struggling to launch his/her new product, and even if he/she is successful in launching it,

the financial gain, in some cases, will hardly cover the cost. Therefore, there is anargument for diversity and choice of media products, i.e. it is important not to have in

any country saturation of any media products, such as with the present situation

concerning the saturated market of American media production.

When it comes to the music industry, the market and the power of controlling it again is

the main issue. The $30 billion industry generates its income from massive international

market. For example, one album ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson sold more than 40 million

copies, which consequently produced a profit for CBS of more than $60 million. The

Japanese ‘Sony’ saw that there was an opportunity for their hardware industry in this

market, so when the CBS company decided to sell their record division, they (the

Japanese) bought it for $2 billion. The sale meant a new door opening for more sales toSony, i.e. with their new technology at that time, e.g. CD, software, etc, they can sell the

music all over again on a new format. From the above takeover, the big corporations in

the music industry copied Sony’s action by buying market shares of other smaller music

companies. The last music business ‘Virgin’ sold to EMI Thorn for $500 million. There are

, consequently, a few big corporations which control the music industry worldwide, such

as Thorn-EMI, Sony, Philips/Polygram, Matsushita/MCA, Time Warner and

Bertelsmann/BMG.

The above companies have penetrated the worldwide market and have an overall

monopoly of this market, which consequently, as has been mentioned in connection

with the film and TV industry, bring with it a limitation of consumer choice.

The Print Industry (Publications)

Concerning the print industry, i.e. publications such as newspapers, magazines and books,

the statistics show that between 1985 and 1995 the number of media products and

distribution systems has increased noticeably. However, this does not mean that these

new products have successfully established themselves in the market. Many of the new

launches at that time such as News on Sunday, The Sunday Correspondent and The Post

could not survive the competition and consequently closed down. Many critics believe

that the close down of a number of newspapers is the result of Mr. Murdoch’s price war.



For example, account for News Corporation during 1994 indicated a loss more than £45

million in the United Kingdom alone. However, the profits at BSKyB rose to over £186

million. News corporation also suffered a drop in profit outside UK but at the same time

had a rise in television and films profits. Mr. Murddoch tried to increase the sale of his

newspapers – that means taking readers away from newspapers such as the Daily

Telegraph and The Independent. He reduced the price of The Times newspaper as well as

introducing upmarket bingo, bringing more sensational stories in the Sunday Times (the

false Hitler Diaries), all these had limited success.

Najib Altawell

the process of media industry conglomeration

Documents