In 1983 the majority of media in the US was controlled by 50 companies. Today that number is 6. The FCC is considering making the situation even worse, only this time quietly without public input. Bernie Sanders explains the danger here:

http://vimeo.com/55073967

12/8/2012 8:22:05 PM

nconspiracylb

12/9/2012 3:03:04 PM

It doesn't matter how many competitors you have. What matters is low barriers to entry, which doesn't seem to be a problem nowadays thanks to the internet.

12/9/2012 11:49:37 PM

low barrier?

serious?

12/10/2012 12:12:58 AM

yeah, my blog has as many viewers as the Fox Broadcasting Company does between all of their outlets, why doesn't yours?

12/10/2012 8:17:27 AM

what was the barrier to, say, Huffington Post or Drudge?

12/10/2012 9:23:27 AM

lmao low barriers to entry ahaha

Quote :

"what was the barrier to, say, Huffington Post or Drudge?"

The Drudge Report came to prominence basically by breaking a few stories on the Clinton sex scandal, at a time when the Internet as a mass-media service was a new thing and the market was open for such an aggregator.

Huffington post got big because it billed itself as the liberal version of Drudge.

Neither of them broke into a mature market, they both filled a pre-existing void.

[Edited on December 10, 2012 at 10:39 AM. Reason : .]

12/10/2012 10:36:49 AM

Not sure if Huffington or Drudge are good models of comparison either. They're both news aggregators; neither generates all that much content. Many of the so-called news blogs you see work that way as well. The question is what happens as their news sources disappear or get paywalled away?

12/10/2012 3:49:59 PM

consolidation is an unfortunate side effect of the freedom of the internet. no one wants to pay directly for content they're used to getting for free and web advertisement is so shitty that it doesnt cover the costs for all but the largest of the large media companies. The result is smaller companies go out of business or get eaten by the larger ones.

If someone does come up with an effective paywall system (they wont) then this might change and smaller time guys might become more viable.

News media is kind of fucked and consolidation is a symptom, not the cause.

12/10/2012 4:52:39 PM