In 1982, when I completed research for my book, The Media Monopoly, 50 corporations controlled half or more of the media business. By December 1986, when I finished a revision for a second edition, the 50 had shrunk to 29. When the latest edition was published in 1993, the number was down to 20. A number of serious Wall Street media analysts are

predicting that by the 1990s, a half-dozen giant firms will control most

of our media.

In the process, the usual democratic expectation for the media --

diversity of ownership and ideas -- has disappeared as the goal of

official policy and, worse, as a daily experience of a generation of

American readers and viewers.

 

Ben Bagdikian, author of The Media Monopoly, 1993