Media merger mania

Still, the cap hasn't deterred Murdoch's competitors from flocking to India and aggressively trying to alter the local media landscape. Bertelsmann, Vivendi Universal and Time Warner have all sent representatives to the sub continent to lay the groundwork for their arrival.

This scene is nothing new. In fact, it's being played out in all parts of the world with the same big name media actors. " Since the early 1990s, a huge wave of mergers in the West has concentrated the media into the hands of fewer and fewer corporations," explained Andrew Nachison, Director of the Media Centre, a Reston, Virginia-based think tank focused on the intersection of media, society and technology. "They've become the dominant players in the global media marketplace, where they are exerting increasing influence over local societies and cultures."

This select group of multinational media giants include the Walt Disney Company (2001 revenues, about $7 billion), Bertelsmann ($21 billion), Viacom ($26 billion), Vivendi Universal ($32 billion) and Time Warner ($38 billion) and Murdoch's News Corp ($21 billion.)

Merger mania started in the 1980s when the U.S. government, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund began pressuring the global community to deregulate and privatise the media. Then in 1996 the U.S Congress passed the Telecommunications Act, which sparked a series of leap frogging mergers, each one bigger than before.

In 1999 Viacom swallowed the CBS corporation and the press proclaimed: " the big media deal ever.' Two years later, an even bigger deal, stunned Wall Street. AOL bought Time Warner for a staggering $112 billion in stock.

"Since the Telecommunications Act (of 1996), we've seen a strong movement in the U.S. to roll back the remaining controls over media concentration," Jeff Blevins, a professor of electronic media studies at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, explained. "The world hasn't seen the last of the mega media deal."

In their never ending quest for profit, the big players have gobbled up interests in numerous media industries around the world, including film production, book publishing, the Internet, magazines and newspapers and TV and radio channels and networks.

This type of expansion is vital to their success, said Fariborz Ghadar, Director of the Center for Global Business Studies at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania. "The media giants can't make much of a profit in their domestic market," Ghadar explained. "Continually finding new markets overseas is the only way they can find the capital to grow while making their shareholders happy."

Yet, while growth no doubt benefits these multinationals, one must ask: what's in for the global community? Media merger mania has sparked a fierce debate in which even big name CEOs who head these corporations have begged to disagree.

Gerald Levin, former chief executive of Time Warner, predicted that the global media would become the dominant industry in the 21st century, perhaps even more powerful an institution than government. "When you have a system available everywhere in the world immediately, the old-fashioned regulatory system has to give way." Levin said.

Barry Diller, the former head of Universal, considers Levin's bold vision to be misguided. "There are real dangers in complete concentration," Diller warned in April 2003 at the time of his resignation as Universal head. 'The conventional wisdom is wrong; we need more regulation -- not less."

It may be the age of free markets and less government controls, but many are asking: Do we really want some media behemoth in our backyard controlling what we see, hear and read? After all, they have no interest in our community and their allegiance is solely tied to special interest advertisers and to stockholders in some distant land.

And what about the quality of the news? "What's happening with the Western media is being played out globally," explained Shel Horovitz, Internet publisher and owner of the website, Fruglemarketing.com, who has written on media consolidation. "The same type of superficially reported stories that emphasise sensationalism are being told everywhere, whether the medium is television, newspaper or whatever. That's the result of media convergence."

Some media analysts warn that merger mania threatens the cultural identities of nations. After all, the largely U.S. dominated media giants play a disproportionate role as gatekeepers, controlling the flow of information and images globally and how they are constructed. Many groups--from French intellectuals to Islamic fundamentalists--have railed against what they fear is an attempt by Uncle Sam to dominate the world culturally as well as politically and economically.

Theoretically, at least, the global media giants, with their Western bias, can provide information channels that pressure undemocratic leaders, policy makers and businesses to alter their nasty ways. More often than not, though, the opposite is likely to happen.

As the noted media analyst Robert McChesney put it: "The emergence of such a highly concentrated media system in the hands of huge private concerns violates in a fundamental manner any notion of a free press in a democratic society. Journalism…will be controlled by those who benefit by existing inequality and the preservation of the status quo."

To cite one graphic example: In 1994, at the time he was looking for business in China, Rupert Murdoch dropped the BBC from his satellite news service after Chinese leaders complained about the network's coverage.

The Internet's advent has been ballyhooed as the great democratic equaliser, but guess who owns this "revolutionary" media? That's right -- the media giants. "We think we have a lot of freedom to finds anything we want on the Internet, but, actually, we are being directed by a small number of players who have the power to direct us to where they want us to go," Blevins said.

So where is media merger mania heading? The good news --the global medium system is still in flux. The bad news -- time is running out for the global community to unshackle the communication chains and reclaim its independence.

Ron Chepesiuk is a Visiting Professor of Journalism at Chittagong University and a Research Associate with the National Defense College in Bangladesh.