The Business of News

  • In 1983, 50 corporations owned a majority of the news media. In 1992, fewer than two dozen owned 90% of the news media. In 2006, the number fell to a total of four corporations: Time Warner, Disney, News Corporation, and Bertelsmann.41


  • Newspaper sales have declined by 12% over the last ten years, and by nearly 20% in the last 20 years.42


  • The three network nightly newscasts have seen their ratings decline by 34% in the past ten years, nearly 44% since 1980, and 59% from their peak in 1969. Network ratings continued to decline by 6% in 2005.43


  • In 2003 with the support of the White House, then Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Michael Powell pushed to further media consolidation, attempting to increase major media ownership of local stations from 35% to 45%.44


  • Between 1998 and 2004, broadcast companies spent $186 million influencing political campaigns. This included lobbying, campaign contributions and all-expense-paid trips for federal officials.45


  • Over an eight-year span the telecommunications and broadcast companies spent $2.8 million on travel and entertainment, taking FCC regulators on 2,500 all-expense-paid trips.46


  • Between 2002 and 2003, top broadcast corporation officials met with FCC regulators more than 70 times to discuss deregulation of ownership rules.47


  • For the first time ever, a major TV network's owner publicly endorsed a presidential candidate weeks before the election. Sumner Redstone (chairman of Viacom and CBS), said, "The Democrats are not bad people . . . but from a Viacom standpoint, we believe the election of a Republican administration is better for our company." (Viacom political contributions: Over the past six years the company has contributed over $4 million to political parties and spent over $14 million on lobbying.)48


  • In 2005 the annual profit margin for newspapers in the U.S. was 20%, double the average for other major industry sectors. Since 2000, over 2,500 newsroom professionals, approximately 5% of the editorial workforce nationwide have been fired. These layoffs include Don Barlett and Jim Steele of The Philadelphia Inquirer, who won two Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting in the 1970.49
  • In the fall of 2006, the Audit Bureau of Circulations calculated figures showing that combined weekday circulation for daily newspapers was down to 43.7 million. This indicated the steepest average decline in 15 years, with circulation down nearly 20 million from the 1984 high of 63.3 million.57

  • In a 2004 survey of 547 journalists and news media executives, 66% felt that profit pressures were hurting national coverage and 57% felt they were hurting local coverage. This is a 25% (national) and 24% (local) increase in both categories since the question was first asked in 1995.58