Media & Corporate links
Millionaire Owners
The national media are owned by wealthy individuals or trusts. These all operate through profit seeking companies which in turn may belong to larger parent companies or conglomerates.
In the UK, the major national papers have millionaire private owners
– Rupert Murdoch (Sun, Times, Sunday Times, News of the World),
- Lord Rothermere (Daily Mail, Evening Standard, Mail on Sunday),
- Conrad Black (Daily Telegraph),
- Richard Desmond (Daily Express, Daily Star).
That leaves the Daily Mirror, Independent, Guardian & Observer which are owned by trusts.
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Advertisers
The corporate media sell audiences to the advertisers which are corporations selling a product or service. Adverts from companies are a vital source of revenue for the media. Chomsky in Necessary Illusions (Pluto 1993) comments: ‘There is a growing convergence between editorial and advertising content, reflecting the increasing accommodation of national newspaper managements to the selective needs of advertisers.’
For example, Roy Greenslade noted how most media owners, "have
been disproportionately reliant on ad revenue..." (Roy Greenslade, 'Oh no, sales
are up...' the Guardian, October 15, 2001)
Writing in the Observer in 2001, Richard Ingrams noted that The Daily
Telegraph had lost 100,000 readers over the previous year, adding:
"No doubt this alarming fall explains a recent meeting
between Telegraph executives and advertising agency J. Walter Thompson, at which
the admen attacked the poor old Telegraph editor Charles Moore for his outdated
Little England attitudes coupled with homophobia."
(Richard Ingrams's week, the Observer, November 4, 2001)
The consequences of a stock market-shaking disaster like September 11 are dire
for a media so dependent on advertising. In the Guardian, Emily Bell
described how "For the advertising-based media industry, almost from nowhere,
the ground has opened up under our feet and swallowed businesses, jobs, TV
channels and magazines... The Independent on Sunday axed five journalists. IPCC,
the magazine company, axed six titles and 115 staff in one fell swoop."
(Emily Bell, 'Staring into the abyss', Guardian, November, 19, 2001)
See
- advertisers,