6 Corporations Who Own 90% Of The News Media

Which are the corporations who own 90% of the news media? It is said that whoever controls the media controls the mind. Billions of people around the world consume some sort of mass media to get daily news and analysis. There are hundreds of TV channels, newspapers, and news websites, but the zeitgeist of the news media sphere is defined by big names in the industry like Twenty-First Century Fox Inc (NASDAQ:FOXA), News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA), Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX), Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA), Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS), and Amazon.com, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN). It turns out there are very few people who control these famous news media companies. In fact, the level of concentration of money and resources in the media industry is flabbergasting. A few “politically active” billionaires spend a fortune to ensure their bias is all over the media industry, and influencing the minds of the masses. Politics around the world has become a rich man’s game, and we see the manifestation of this fact quite frequently in the U.S.

In 2012, 93-year-old casino mogul Sheldon Adelson famously spent millions for the election of Mitt Romney, and also donated a fortune to block a pro-union measure in Michigan and to elect his favorite GOP candidates. The political influence of business tycoons like The Koch Brothers, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, and Rupert Murdoch is glaringly visible throughout the history of recent U.S politics. Most recently, we saw how tech billionaire Peter Thiel funneled millions to support a lawsuit against Gawker Media just because Gawker’s website criticized him back in 2007. The lawsuit resulted in the closure of the website.

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This unprecedented control of corporate billionaires over news media outlets has rightfully made people skeptical about their news sources. That’s why we are seeing the rise of social media news channels, especially video news channels on YouTube. If you are interested, take a look at the 7 best YouTube news channels to watch. In this article, we will talk about the most powerful corporations who control most of the famous news media. See the first name on the list of corporations who own 90% of the news media on the next page.

Twenty-First Century Fox Inc (NASDAQ:FOXA)

Twenty-First Century Fox Inc (NASDAQ:FOXA) is an American mass media company which was spun out of News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA) in 2013. Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch is the chairman of Twenty-First Century Fox. He decided to split News Corp into two separate publicly-traded companies, one for publishing and the other focused on media. Twenty-First Century Fox Inc (NASDAQ:FOXA) owns Fox News, Fox Entertainment, all the properties of Fox Television and Fox’s subsidiaries. The New York-based company is also the owner of all Fox Sports channels like Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2; STAR India; and film media entities like Fox 21 Inc, Twentieth Century Fox Television Productions, and Twentieth Television.

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News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA)

News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA) runs some of the most popular news publications and journals, not only in the U.S, but around the world including the U.K and Australia. As mentioned above, Rupert Murdoch spun-off News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA) and handed the reins of the company to Robert James Thomson, editor of The Wall Street Journal. New Corp owns practically every major business news website and magazine in the U.S. The list of the company’s assets includes big names like Barrons, The Wall Street Journal, CIO Journal, CFO Journal, CMO Journal, International WSJ editions, MarketWatch, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, Factiva, DJ Risk & Compliance, Dow Jones Newswires, and Dow Jones Private Market. The company also owns famous online news website and magazine The New York Post. In the U.K, News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA) owns The Times and The Sun, which is the most popular newspaper in the country, having a circulation of 1.79 million copies sold per day as of 2016. Rupert Murdoch’s media assets in the U.K have a history of supporting Conservatives. The media mogul had faced a lot of criticism in the past due to the biased nature of his media outlets.

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Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX)

We’re half way through our list of corporations who own 90% of the news media, and at number 4 we have Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX), a New York-based media conglomerate which owns CNN, Turner Broadcasting System, movie channel HBO, the Warner Bros studio, and several other news and media outlets in the U.S and Europe. It is important to note that the famous Cartoon Network channel also comes under the division of Turner Broadcasting System, which is the property of Time Warner. Time Warner Inc (NYSE:TWX) spun-off Time Magazine as a separate company in 2014. In October 2016, Time Warner agreed to be acquired by telecom giant AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) in an $85.4 billion historic deal. But the deal is expected to face some resistance from the FTC, as several reports suggest that Rupert Murdoch is using his friendship with President-elect Donald Trump to try and kill the merger.

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Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA)

Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) is the biggest broadcasting and cable television company in the world by revenue. This company dwarfs giants like Time Warner and Twenty-First Century Fox because it has a strong grip on mass media, telecommunications (internet), cable, TV and broadcasting, all at the same time. Comcast owns NBCUniversal, which controls NBC network (NBC Entertainment, NBC News, NBC Sports, and NBC Studios). The company also owns famous channels like CNBC, Bravo, E!, USA Network, MSNBC, mun2, Chiller, SyFy, Sleuth, and Universal HD. Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) also owns the film giant Universal Studios.

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Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS)

Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) owns famous news channel ABC News, sports channel EPSN, animation company Pixar, motion picture studio Marvel Studios, and film company Miramax. Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) is the second largest media conglomerate in terms of revenue after Comcast.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Famous billionaire and Amazon.com, Inc.  (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos acquired The Washington Post for $250 million in 2013, despite the fact that he had no prior experience in the news media business. Mr. Bezos has come under fire from President-elect Donald Trump and his supporters, who accuse him of not paying taxes and using the Post for his personal benefit. Trump denies press credentials for the Washington Post’s reporters, and call the media outlet a “mouthpiece of Amazon”. Trump and Bezos also engaged in a Twitter war in which Bezos offered to shoot Mr. Trump into space.

There they are, the 6 corporations who own 90% of the news media. Does the monopoly of our airwaves by a few wealthy individuals concern you? What sources do you use to get news? Let us know in the comments.

Disclosure: None