by Ron Kaufman |
|
The heroes of American society are those that make a lot of money. In fact, making money is the greatest achievement anyone in the United States can accomplish. Everyone wants to be rich. Corporations in America have but one purpose: to make money. Lots of money. There is no higher purpose and there is no greater good. The more money corporations make and the more "wealth" is created in America the more wonderful and fulfilling all of our lives will become. Capitalism is perfect and should continued unquestioned and unfettered. And so, since this is the belief, media companies have obliged by getting larger and larger.
In 2005, media revenue in the U.S. totaled $268.48 billion. (Ad Age magazine) Advertising revenue is soaring, with Ad Age reporting that total TV advertising in 2006 reaching a new high at more than $65 billion (a 5.3% increase from 2005). Viewership is also up with Nielsen Media Research reporting that household and individual TV viewing during the 2005-2006 season hit a record high. The company says that the total average time per household spent watching TV in 2005-06 was eight hours and 14 minutes per day. The Consumers Union (the group the publishes Consumer Reports magazine) reported that during 2006, the 109th Congress sold out the consumer in order to benefit the big money media conglomerates. The group noted that the government "did not address the anti-competitive practices of cable TV and phone companies that drive up our rates and threaten Internet freedom. They ignored the critical issue of ensuring a robust and independent media in this nation by failing to properly oversee the Federal Communications Commission which could adopt policies allowing media conglomerates to control more newspapers and TV stations in local markets." Below is a look at the top six media conglomerates in the United States:
This is not even close to an exhaustive list and nearly all the large media companies have intertwining relationships with each other. Advertising Age magazine constructed an excellent Media Family Tree (pdf file) which shows how these companies cross-pollinate their profits. The stats below also look at the pay for the company's top executives. Forbes.com reports that in 2006, "chief executives of America's 500 biggest companies got a collective 38% pay raise last year, to $7.5 billion. That's an average $15.2 million apiece." The AFL-CIO's Executive Paywatch site notes that the average executive's pay is 411 times that of the average worker's salary. Also of note, are the philanthropic donations given by these corporations. Though the amount given is usually small, these companies view the act of making tons of money as the greatest good it could possibly give back to society. In the Corporate Citizenship Report 2006 from General Electric, the company notes that "citizenship is not a promise, not a program . . . [but] a full-time commitment" and notes that its number one goal is for "strong economic performance and stakeholder impact." In the report, GE notes that its progress on "Globalization/Human Rights" is that the company "achieved 16% global revenue growth." Not one of these top six media companies are found on Corporate Responsibility Officer Magazine's 100 Best Corporate Citizens 2007 report. The CRO list includes corporations such as Nike, IBM, Starbucks, Johnson & Johnson, American Express, Pepsi, Xerox, Microsoft and others. None of these media companies placed on the list when issues such as "community," "diversity," "employee relations," "environment" and "human rights" where taken into account. Big media in the U.S. is all about making money - and nothing more. |
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
Financial Resources:
|
|
This page was last updated June 2, 2007 |
Media
companies follow the sage advice of Economist Milton Friedman who said:
"The question is, do corporate executives . . . have responsibilities
in their business activities other than to make as much money
for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no they
do not.” These conglomerates also give praise capitalist guru Ayn
Rand who believed that: "Contrary to the vulgar belief that men are
motivated primarily by materialistic considerations, we now see the capitalist
system being discredited and destroyed all over the world, even though
this system has given men the greatest material comforts." Certainly,
material comfort makes the world go 'round.
Even
though Time Warner does not own a major TV network, it is not
absent from the medium. Through Warner Bros., the company produces
many TV shows including (for the 2006-2007) season Two and
a Half Men, ER, Without A Trace, Cold Case and Smallville.
GE
CEO Jeffrey Immelt has been pushing the company's new environmentally
friendly image. GE estimates its revenue from renewable energy
in 2007 will be $7 billion. The company makes $20 billion a year
from its power generation industries.
Total
company contributions through the Comcast Foundation
since its creation in June 1999: $30 million
Comcast
raises its rates every year, often at many times that of average
inflation. The Philadelphia Inquirer noted that on January
1, 2007, Comcast will raise its cable TV rates by an average of
3.2%, making the company's standard cable package cost $52.55
(up 3.5% from the previous year). During this same time period,
the paper noted that the national rate of inflation was 1.3%.
At the same time, the Inquirer noted that "Comcast
continues to score below average in J.D. Power surveys of customer
satisfaction."
Conglomerate
Highlights
On
December 31, 2005 Viacom and CBS Corp. split into two separate
publicly traded companies. This comes one year
after Viacom and Blockbuster Inc. split in a similar fashion.
Meanwhile
in China, a group called the Hong Kong Students and Scholars Against
Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) accused three factories that make
Disney products of violations of mainland labor laws and called
for immediate action to halt the malpractice. In September 2006,
the group stated that Disney underpaid and overworked its labor.
The group produced 
