According to an article on articleworld.org, “a media conglomerate is a very large, usually multinational corporation that owns a large part of the mass media market.” After doing some research into what a media conglomerate is, I decided to find out who the media conglomerates in today’s world are. Freepress.net names Viacom as one of “The Big Six” with their 2009 revenues reaching $13.6 billion. The other Big Six companies are General Electric, the Walt Disney Company, News Corporation, Time Warner, and CBS with Viacom coming in fifth.
Viacom was started in 1971 as a spin-off of CBS and bought MTV Networks in 1986. They merged with Paramount Communications in 1994 and were well on their way to becoming a Big Six contender by 2006 when their current president and chief executive officer, Phillipe Dauman took office.
Viacom has a hand in many different aspects of today’s media. They have television and radio stations, publishing companies, and film studios in addition to many other holdings. Most of their subsidiary companies are popular in society and include Nickelodeon and MTV among others.
While being a giant media conglomerate is good for Viacom (their yearly earnings are astounding), their power is excessive and limits the amount of competition within the market. Music television, for example is almost monopolized by Viacom who not only owns MTV, but also VH1 and BET. Also, were Viacom to suffer from the economy, many of our favorite subsidiary companies would suffer as well. That’s not good for anyone, especially those who work for Viacom or the subsidiary companies.
Being a big media conglomerate has its ups and downs, but Viacom has done well keeping and expanding its subsidiary companies. With MTV alone, Viacom has expanded from one television station to five, with one geared towards the Latin community and one in Europe. Viacom is a prime example of how to take the media and turn it into big bucks and successful careers.
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