Joe Lamantia.com

Cour­tesy of the media aware­ness and activism group Freepress.net:
1. A hand­ful of com­pa­nies dom­i­nate
Five media con­glom­er­ates — Via­com, Dis­ney, Time Warner, News Corp. and NBC/GE — con­trol the big four net­works (70% of the prime time tele­vi­sion mar­ket share), most cable chan­nels, vast hold­ings in radio, pub­lish­ing, movie stu­dios, music, Inter­net, and other sec­tors. [Con­sumers Union/Parents Tele­vi­sion Coun­cil]
2. Big Media are a pow­er­ful spe­cial inter­est in Wash­ing­ton
Media com­pa­nies intent upon chang­ing the FCC media own­er­ship rules have spent nearly $100 mil­lion on lob­by­ing in the last 4 years. FCC offi­cials have taken more than 2,500 industry-sponsored jun­kets since 1995, at a pric­etag of $2.8 mil­lion. [Com­mon Cause, Cen­ter for Pub­lic Integrity]
3. Con­sol­i­da­tion fos­ters infe­rior edu­ca­tional pro­gram­ming.
After Via­com pur­chased the inde­pen­dent KCAL in Los Ange­les, children’s pro­gram­ming plunged 89%, drop­ping from 26 hours per week in 1998 to three hours in 2003 (the min­i­mum require­ment set by Con­gress). TV sta­tions air pro­grams like NFL Under the Hel­met and Saved by the Bell, claim­ing they meet edu­ca­tional pro­gram­ming require­ments. [Chil­dren Now, FCC]
4. Cable rates are sky­rock­et­ing
Cable com­pa­nies lob­bied for and won dereg­u­la­tion in 1996, argu­ing that it would lower prices. Since then, cable rates have been ris­ing at three times the rate of infla­tion. On aver­age, rates have risen by 50%; in New York City, they’ve risen by 93.7%. [US PIRG]
5. Big Media profit from a money-dominated cam­paign finance sys­tem
In 2002, tele­vi­sion sta­tions earned more than $1 bil­lion from polit­i­cal adver­tis­ing — more than they earned from fast food and auto­mo­tive ads. You were four times more likely to see a polit­i­cal ad dur­ing a TV news broad­cast than an election-related news story. [Alliance for Bet­ter Cam­paigns]
6. Big Media use the public’s air­waves at no charge
The total worth of the publicly-owned air­waves that U.S. broad­cast­ers uti­lize has been val­ued at $367 bil­lion — more than many nations’ GDPs — but the pub­lic has never been paid a dime in return. And the broad­cast­ers claim they can’t afford to be account­able to the pub­lic inter­est! [Alliance for Bet­ter Cam­paigns]
7. Inde­pen­dent voices are fad­ing
Since 1975, two-thirds of inde­pen­dent news­pa­per own­ers have dis­ap­peared, and one-third of inde­pen­dent tele­vi­sion own­ers have van­ished. Only 281 of the nation’s 1,500 daily news­pa­pers remain inde­pen­dently owned, and more than half of all U.S. mar­kets are one-newspaper towns. [Writ­ers Guild of Amer­ica, East; Con­sumer Fed­er­a­tion of Amer­ica]
8. Con­sol­i­da­tion is killing local radio
The num­ber of radio sta­tion own­ers has plum­meted by 34% since 1996, when own­er­ship rules were gut­ted. That year, the largest radio own­ers con­trolled fewer than 65 sta­tions; today, radio giant Clear Chan­nel alone owns over 1,200. [FCC]
9. Con­sol­i­da­tion threat­ens minor­ity media own­er­ship
Minor­ity own­er­ship — a cru­cial source of diverse and var­ied view­points — is at a 10-year low, down 14% since 1997. Today, only 4% of radio sta­tions and 1.9% of tele­vi­sion sta­tions are minority-owned. [Writ­ers Guild of Amer­ica, East]
10. The free flow of idea and infor­ma­tion is being stymied
No copy­righted work cre­ated after 1922 has entered the pub­lic domain — an incu­ba­tor for new ideas — due to corporate-sponsored leg­is­la­tion extend­ing copy­right terms. If laws being con­sid­ered today had been in effect a few gen­er­a­tions ago, you wouldn’t have access to prod­ucts such as VCRs and copy machines. [U.S. Copy­right Office, FCC, Elec­tronic Fron­tier Foundation]