Commentary

Media Dis-Consolidation: Help Yourself or the Government Will

Media consolidation is no doubt on its heels. If companies are not doing it voluntarily, the courts may force a move.

Companies like Tribune Co. could be facing a tough call if the Supreme Court doesn't counter a lower court ruling, which only allows media companies to have one media asset in a market. Tribune would be forced to sell off either a newspaper or a TV station in a single market.

Among its many media properties, Tribune owns newspapers, TV stations, and Web sites in three of the largest markets -- New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. That would mean that it would have to sell either Newsday or WPIX-TV in New York or KTLA-TV or the Los Angeles Times in Los Angeles, for example.

All this comes at a time when companies themselves are rethinking the whole big media company process. Yesterday, Viacom approved a split of its media assets into two companies -- all to let its fast growing cable assets have a life of their own, not encumbered with slower moving media such as network television.

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Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom, told Daily Variety, "I've learned from experience that you never look back and that you don't follow the crowd. I think the age of the conglomerates is probably over."

And, of course, so goes that magical word learned by every media executive who ever hoped to become a media mogul: synergy.

Synergy, it seems, like the word 'conglomerates,' isn't all that good for shareholders, viewers, or their advertisers. Media companies need to be more nimble -- and Viacom hopes a split of its businesses will mean just that.

For big media companies, all roads point to less -- which may yield more in the end.

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