Barry Diller takes on the Media Oligopoly (!)
Barry Diller, the man who founded Fox Broadcasting and who ran such media giants as ABC, Paramount, and Vivendi Universal, hardly rates as a bomb-throwing radical. In fact, he has often been called an oligopolist, a mogul himself. But he recently gave a speech at the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) in which he energetically attacked the growing power of the media oligopoly.
As a follow-up, in a recent interview on Bill Moyers's NOW program on PBS, he gave a trenchant analysis of the media oligopoly. It illustrates many of the principles we have asserted in this site. Here are some excerpts.
First Diller asserts that such an oligopoly exists, and that they move vertically and horizontally:
BARRY DILLER: What's happened is, is that this oligopoly that was attempted to be prevented by regulation over the last 30 years. You know? 30 years ago, three companies controlled 90 percent of everything we heard or saw. And that was a bad idea. Now four companies, five companies control 90 percent of everything we see.
BILL MOYERS: Oligopoly. That's your word. I mean, that's a very strong word.
BARRY DILLER: Well, it certainly isn't an exaggeration.
BILL MOYERS: What do you mean by it?
BARRY DILLER: What I mean is, is that is that a very. a handful of companies are in charge of everything both vertically and horizontally that you get to see through a screen, a television screen not a computer screen. And I think. what I do think has to come along with that are rules and regulations that will make it so. That what we do not have in this country is a media and communications business that has no other voices in it. No air in it.
Olgopolies converge:
BARRY DILLER: If, in fact, you have companies that produce, that finance, that air on their channel and then distribute worldwide everything that goes through their controlled distribution system. Then, in fact, what you get is fewer and fewer actual voices participating in the process. Used to have dozens and dozens of thriving independent production companies producing television programs.
Pseudo-variety in the broadcating industry:
BILL MOYERS: The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Michael Powell, and others say, "Look, we have 500-plus channels. We have the satellite. We have the wide open internet that they are gonna know so well." I mean, these have radically changed the media landscape....: Perhaps we have more diversity.
BARRY DILLER: No, we don't. Because what we have is an absolute fact that five companies control 90 percent of all of it. It has been reconstituted.Instead of it being three channels that were controlled by a few people, there are now 500 controlled by a few people.
Co-opting innovators:
BILL MOYERS: Could a young Barry Diller make it today? A young Ted
Turner? Could there be a new ESPN? A new CNN?
BARRY DILLER: Almost impossible.
BILL MOYERS: Why?
BARRY DILLER:...That can't happen today. It can't happen today because if you knock on the door of these entities, they say ... it's not independent by definition 'cause we'll own it. You know? There's no chance you can own it. That's gone now.
Bravo Mr. Diller. I think you hit the nail on the head!
6:21:07 PM 
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