Media Consolidation Shuts Out Women and Minorities

Posted September 20th, 2006 by Jen Howard

Another report has been released — this time by members of the StopBigMedia.com Coalition. Free Press’ study, Out of the Picture, is the first complete assessment and analysis of female and minority ownership of broadcast television stations. It shows the consequences of further consolidation — and not surprisingly, the results were grim.

• Women comprise 51 percent of the entire U.S. population, but own only 4.97 percent of all TV stations.
• Minorities make up 33 percent of the entire U.S. population, but own only 3.26 percent of all stations.
• While the level of female and minority ownership has advanced in other industries since the late 1990s, it has worsened in the broadcast sector.
• Hispanic- or Latino-owned stations reach just 21.8 percent of the Latino TV households in the United States.
• 91 percent of African-American TV households are not reached by a black-owned TV station.
• Markets with minority owners are significantly less concentrated than markets without them – even if the size of the market is held constant.

Out of the Picture criticizes the FCC for abandoning its responsibility to monitor and foster the diversity of media owners, and ignoring the impact of its own policies.

S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press and co-author of the study explains:

“This is a very important study, but it is one that we should not have had to write. The FCC has the duty and responsibility to monitor and foster female and minority broadcast ownership. But the FCC has failed.”

Mark Cooper, director of research at Consumer Federation of America and co-author of the study adds:

“This is the first study to show the direct link between increasing media concentration and the lack of minority ownership in the media. It not only presents statistical analysis but also provides a detailed assessment of the stations that left minority hands as a result of specific policies adopted by the Congress and the FCC to allow media concentration.”

The full study is now available at: www.stopbigmedia.com/files/out_of_the_picture.pdf

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