Monday, April 25, 2016
Gannett Makes Bid To Acquire Tribune Publishing
In yet another blow to print media, Gannett is making a bid to acquire the Tribune Publishing Company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Baltimore Sun and San Diego Union-Tribune. Gannett is offering $12.25 per share, a 63% premium over the company's closing stock price Friday. This continues the troubling centralization of American media under the control of a handful of corporate media giants with close ties to the military/industrial complex.
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12 comments:
Sorry news if ever was heard.
Thank you Bill Clinton for your support of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which continued change begun under Reagan but allowed for much of the media to be grabbed up and hoarded by a handful of 1%-ers who alone decide what is newsworthy and what should be known... and not known or not told.
In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S.
...in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. More than 1 in 4 Internet users in the U.S. now log in with AOL Time-Warner, the world's largest media corporation.
The New Media Monopoly (2004) shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth.
Thank the Federal Reserve for giving away free money to the connected so they can buy themselves off through cheaply borrowed dollars, with the crony investment bankers, consultants, and lawyers taking their hefty unearned rakes.
"The New Media Monopoly (2004) shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth"
Correction - COMCAST's NBC
Comcast is the one to watch as they now control about 33% of the total media from end to end.
I suspect that the CIA and their intimate connection with Time/Life will eventually come out for the public to know that a state controlled media has long existed.....the CIA installed one of its own as Ike's Chief of Staff and black ops both foreign and domestic began.
Excellent comment ANON 7:43. The old "isms" of Communism and Fascism have been reformed, repackaged and re-marketed. Under Stalin, Mao, Hitler or Mussolini etc., the control of the Media was total and obvious. Any published dissenters were arrested, sent to gulag and concentration camp or out right shot.
The CIA early on began their efforts to control content via Operation Mockingbird. Here in the USA with Bill Clinton signing onto the Telecommunication Act dissent or a free press could be controlled via acquisition and mergers far more efficiently than Operation Mockingbird.
The content and delivery systems, papers, radio, TV, and/or cable are horizontally, and vertically controlled. It was in many respects a perfect corporate coup by the 1%, no bloodshed and dissent would not be reported on. Orwell in his book 1984 saw Big Brother using media to spy on us in our homes and deluge us with good news about the State, and selected enemies that require continuous War. The McMega-Media today exists to entertain us.
It would be a big mistake! Gannett is a polarizing propaganda machine. It has abolished journalism in favor of CONTROL. Gannett believes it should control what its readers know and shape their opinions. It is a betrayal of any journalistic ethics.
Why don't they just buy out all of the country's major newspapers while they're at it? Everything is Gannett Gannett Gannett these days.
More consolidation::
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is letting the third-largest cable company in the US buy the second-largest: chairman Tom Wheeler has recommended that the body approve TV and internet distribution giant Charter’s plan to purchase Time Warner as well as the smaller Bright House Networks.
Has a background hat is now typical of our "watchdogs". Per WIKI
Prior to working at the FCC, Wheeler worked as a venture capitalist and lobbyist for the cable and wireless industry, with positions including President of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) and CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA).
During Barack Obama's presidential campaign, Wheeler spent six weeks in Iowa aiding his campaign efforts and went on to raise over US $500,000 for Obama's campaigns.
This doesn't bother me as much as it does other readers for a couple of reasons. 1. Gannett is largely irrelevant in this day and age. So is Tribune. If Gannett want to pay a 63% premium to buy a buggy whip manufacturer, well, good. It will hasten their demise. 2. The idiots among us have always done what they're told to do. Look at your neighbors and coworkers. This isn't going to make them any less informed than they already are. Their minds are owned by corporate advertising. They believe everything the news media parrots. They have been raised and conditioned to do so. They have no interest in the truth. 3. The economy is contracting. I read this morning that Bob Evans is closing 27 restaurants. They've been in business forever and they can't even sell eggs and pancakes now. Sears is in the death spiral. Walmart will soon be as well. Target seems hellbent on sacrificing itself on the altar of political correctness. Good for them. Less choices means more money in my pocket. Gannett's pool of advertisers is evaporating right before our eyes! Their print properties won't exist in five years and their electronic properties are terrible. Nobody goes to them. When I see the Gannett format I run for the hills. I don't care what Tully has to say. Not even a little. He's irrelevant.
There's delicious irony in the fact that Gannett is buying dead companies. They're not as smart as some readers give them credit for. They will be gone soon. The idiots who ingest the poison they peddle will still be brain dead, with or without them.
I certainly hope that Anon 5:21 AM is correct!
Anon 5:21's buggy whip analogy is on the money. Granny Net doesn't have an investment grade business model.
Hitching their wagon to the star of right wing radio and the deregulation of telecommunication ownership, Clear Channel, through the efforts of Romney's Bain Capital, went on a buying spree spending over $30 billion accumulating some 1,200 radio stations. Reformulated under the iHeartMedia brand, the leveraged corporation now owns 850 stations but, with a $21 billion debt load and unsustainable quarterly losses, bankruptcy is expected in the very near term.
Number two with 454 stations is Cumulus with $2.5 billion in debt and showing a $542million loss for the last quarter. Breakup is expected or bankruptcy is in their near future. CBS Radio is currently for sale.
Put the blame on; the availability of the internet; the lack of advertising dollars; the choice of programming; the excessive cost of acquisitions; or the manipulations of hedge funds, it is clear that investing in the standard media is a losing venture limited to those where monetary value is a secondary consideration.
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