Who are the Big Six who controls the media?

At the beginning of the 80’s there were about 50 companies responsible for most of the media in the US, but now only six companies control 90% of the media in US, and they are called the “Big Six”.

Until 2021, the Big Six controlled a total net worth estimated at more than $430 billion.

According to US Senator Bernie Sanders, the matter isn’t without risk: “These powerful companies also have an agenda, and it would be naive to think that their opinions and needs don’t affect coverage of issues that are important to them”.

So what are these companies?

How do you control the US media?

From the time of the creation of the Federal Communications Commission in 1934, until the 1970s, the US government has largely worked to preserve the diversity of the media and prevent its merging.

Establishing regulations that prevent one company from owning too many newspapers or television stations, or from reaching too large an audience.

There were restrictions on companies and the way they could own or acquire broadcast stations, cable stations, newspapers and websites, but all of those restrictions were removed under the Communications Act signed by then US President Bill Clinton in 1996.

Once the restrictions disappeared, 6 large companies or 6 “media conglomerates” consolidated their dominance in the media markets through gradually mergers and acquisitions of other companies, namely: “WarnerMedia”, “News Corp”, “The Walt Disney Company” and, CBS Comcast and Viacom.

Until 2011, the Big Six achieved an annual financial return of $275 billion.

Smaller competitors stand no chance, and small stations and daily newspapers are bought up, or fail and shut down; because it could not compete with those giant companies.

In 2017, US Senator Bernie Sanders wrote an op-ed titled How Corporate Media Threatens Our Democracy.

He pointed out that important issues such as poverty were not covered enough, while coverage of political campaigns was “as if it was a game show, a baseball game, a television series, or a series of conflicts”.

He continued, “The media shapes our lives, telling us what products we need to buy, and according to the amount and nature of coverage, what is important and what isn’t important”.

And if we take what Bernie Sanders said into consideration, we can understand the extent of the impact of these companies on the results of elections in the US, as research indicates that media bias may affect the choices of voters, and thus the identity of the new American president and his decisions that may affect the world, except for the impact.

Cultural culture of the film and television industry and shows in the US to the whole world.

The United States of America has the largest media arsenal in the world, more than 700 television stations, nearly 6,700 radio stations, 150 daily newspapers, and a cinema industry that produces about 200 films annually, most of which are shown around the world, and the Big Six control the vast majority of them.

Some of these companies even own media outlets in different countries, for example, “News Corp” owns 3 newspapers in 3 countries: “The Wall Street Journal” in America, “The Sun” in Britain, and “The Australian” in Australia.

And to see the extent of the global impact of these companies, it is enough to know that in 2019 alone, Hollywood generated 42.5 billion dollars in box office revenue in cinemas alone.

It is estimated that at least 35% of that money comes from shows in other countries.

This percentage rises significantly in digital display platforms, such as Netflix, Disney Plus, and others, which display their work everywhere in the world, and most digital display platforms are either owned by one of the big six companies, or display materials produced by those companies.

For example, Hulu is owned by Comcast Group, Disney+ is owned by The Walt Disney Company, HBO Max and Discovery are owned by WarnerMedia, and Paramount and Showtime+ are owned by Viacom.

Aside from these platforms, there is a lot more owned by one of the “big six” companies, which provide streaming to hundreds of millions of people and dozens of countries around the world.

Even digital platforms that are not owned by one of these companies, when they show Hollywood films or series, they will most likely display materials produced by companies owned by one of the “Big Six”, since these companies control 90% of the production of films and series in Hollywood.

According to research conducted by scientists from the Laboratory of Speech Psychology and Psycholinguistics: “Cinema becomes a tool for broadcasting ideology to audiences, and these films and programs can shape beliefs, influence opinions and change attitudes”.

Perhaps this is what prompted the Russian Minister of Culture, Vladimir Medinsky, in June 2016 to accuse the US government of funding Netflix to exercise American soft power around the world and said: “They can enter every home, every television, and then every head”.

Another example of the overlapping interests of those companies and the media under their direct control was during the Gulf War in the early nineties, when CBS Network was owned by “Westinghouse” and NBC was owned by “General Electric”.

At the same time, Westinghouse and General Electric were making most of the weapons used in the first Gulf War, and with similar companies controlling the media and public opinion, they could simply persuade the public to wage wars, of which they would be one of the beneficiaries.

Many people now get their news online.

A 2016 Pew Research Center study found that 57% of Americans still get their news from television, 25% from radio and 20% from newspapers.

Of course, moreover, many online news outlets are owned or financed by the same Big Six companies.