We Control the Horizontal and the Vertical

While the merger of AOL and Time Warner and the movie Tomorrow Never Dies have brought the issue of media consolidation before the public eye, many people have no idea just how close we are to a world where the Media Corporation owns every media product we see and hear. Ted Turner, of Turner Broadcasting fame, has written an eye-opening op-ed about the dangers of media conglomeration. It includes the following quote:

Today, the only way for media companies to survive is to own everything up and down the media chain--from broadcast and cable networks to the sitcoms, movies, and news broadcasts you see on those stations; to the production studios that make them; to the cable, satellite, and broadcast systems that bring the programs to your television set; to the Web sites you visit to read about those programs; to the way you log on to the Internet to view those pages. Big media today wants to own the faucet, pipeline, water, and the reservoir. The rain clouds come next.

On a slightly tangential note, this page at the Columbia Journalism Review shows just how much of the country's radio is owned by a little company based out of San Antonio called Clear Channel.