2004 Annual Report - Network TV Ownership

In the last 10 years two networks of the big three, ABC and CBS, have been part of large-scale mergers, and the third, NBC, which went through a large-scale merger of its own earlier, has spread its news division onto cable with all-news channels. As 2004 began, another merger possibility appeared on the horizon, the takeover of Disney, the owner of ABC, by a smaller cable company, Comcast. Network ownership stands out from the other media sectors in two important ways:

• The big three networks that air nightly newscasts are owned by true behemoths of American media. All three owners - Viacom, Disney and General Electric - were among the top five media companies in the country in overall revenue in 2002.¹

• Because these conglomerates are so big, their news divisions are proportionally a much smaller part of the company than they were under their previous owners.

These two points play an important role in where network television news may be headed. Increasingly the question for network news divisions is how they will carry on in a world where they are a smaller and smaller element of the whole. It is difficult, for instance, to find any mention of NBC News in General Electric's annual report, one indicator of where something stands on corporate strategic planning boards.