One Media Giant Reaches Half of America
Right before the FCC voted to loosen cross-ownership rules across the country, allowing one company to own the major daily newspaper and a TV or radio station in the same city, they handed out waivers to the Tribune company to let their new owner Sam Zell hold onto all their vast media properties in Chicago and around the country.
Now, the new year brings with it news that "Tribune and Local TV station groups now have 40 network affiliates in 33 markets (including 14 of the top 25), seven duopolies, $1.6 billion in annual revenue and the marketplace clout that comes with all that size."
In an article published January 1st Harry A. Jessell reports that this "super group" reaches half of the U.S. population. That is a big microphone for one small group of people to control.
In the horse-trading that occurred in the days and hours before the ball dropped on 2007 one corporation got a bit smaller, and one got a bit bigger, but in the end the America people were left in a limbo of corporate greed and junk news. "The Tribune-Local TV group got bigger just days later when Local TV announced that it had agreed to purchase another eight stations in midsize markets—including Cleveland, Denver and St. Louis—from Fox for $1.1 billion," reported Jessell. From this flurry of deal-making in the final days of 2007, "emerged a TV station group with coverage of nearly half the country and as much programming and technology buying power as any in the nation."
But Sam Zell and the Tribune company is not stopping there - in their press release they admit that they plan to extend their management to "serving potential third-party-owned stations in the future." Jessell suggests that if the FCC and Tribune see eye-to-eye (which has been the trend recently) then "there will be virtually no limit on how many stations and TV households can come under the management wing of Tribune."
Jessell quotes BIAfn analyst Mark Fratrik, who says “It’s a very different animal.” Jessell thinks it is not just a new kind of corporate animal - it is a media monster.
Read the whole article here:
- jstearns's blog
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