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When the Federal Communications Commission considered revamping its policies, many political activists argued that media conglomerates had failed to meet their duties to protect freedom of speech. Moveon's dispute with CBS over its proposed Superbowl advertisement and Michael Moore's quarrel over distribution of his documentary, Fahrenheit 911, are cases in point. In matters of pure entertainment, the public expect companies to avoid offensive programming. The press, on the other hand, may well be forced to offend some audience members in order to create a viable forum for political dissent. As journalism and entertainment are increasingly inter-linked, an in depth moral analysis of the media corporation and its obligations becomes increasingly important. I explore Kantian, Utilitarian, and Rawlsian analyses of corporate obligation in the aforementioned cases. I then examine whether or not these results suggest anything more generally about the sorts of mission statements and ethical policies that ought to be endorsed by media conglomerates and whether non-business institutions also require changes. Ultimately, I suggest that at a minimum, media institutions should view the duty to promote the representation of diverse views in a democracy as an imperfect moral and civic duty rather than making programming decisions solely by reference to profit. Ideally, greater access to media access should not be increased for the most powerful unless doing so at the same time increases free speech opportunities for those who currently have the least access.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Divergence on Convergence Defining Convergence in Journalism: A Proposal 4 Types of Convergence in the Media Notes References

Mexico City-based TV Azteca is the second largest producer of Spanish-language television programming in the world, and is controlled by one of Mexico's wealthiest men, Ricardo Salinas Pliego, who owns a number of media and technology companies through his holding company, Grupo Salinas. The company's largest U.S.-based creditors, including Fidelity Investments Inc., Contrarian Capital Management LLC and Cyrus Capital Partners LP, met with a representative for TV Azteca at Fidelity's headquarters in Boston on Wednesday to discuss a plan that would repay the bondholders in full plus accrued interest over time, one of the people said. [...]while skipping its interest payments, the network used cash on hand to pay down a line of credit that Banco Azteca, a bank also controlled by the Salinas family, had extended to the company, according to a March report by Fitch Ratings Inc. Representatives for TV Azteca and Grupo Salinas didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

This article explores the opportunities and problems thus far presented by the movement of old TV shows into new online platforms. Media users can easily view, remix, and share old television content, and media industries struggle to adapt their old business models to these new modes of communication.

With more competition for advertising dollars than ever before, television advertising is an incredibly popular way to advertise and reaches the largest audience base; and it is going nowhere anytime soon.1 In 2017, as part of its review of the proposed (and ultimately unsuccessful) Sinclair-Tribune merger, the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged that some of the United States' largest multimedia conglomerates had been discussing information relating to pacing and other competitively sensitive information (CSI) with one another, allegedly violating American antitrust laws. [...]in the United States, antitrust laws go beyond controlling how much of a market a single company can control (market allocation) and extend to such things as bid rigging, price fixing, and several other aspects of business practices, with the effort to best protect the individual consumer.2 As a rule of thumb, courts typically find that a company has a monopoly over market share if its market share is over 50 percent.3 A market can be any products that are interchangeable in use, or identical in what they are.4 There are few companies that can be considered major players in the multimedia conglomerate world, some of which include Sinclair Broadcasting Group, Nexstar Media Group, TEGNA, Meredith Corporation, and Tribune Media. Additionally, some market analysts argued that this would be a great way for Sinclair to expand, and that because Sinclair is primarily located in smaller markets, while Tribune is primarily located in larger markets, the deal might work and benefit consumers in some ways.8 Statistically, the deal would have placed Sinclair with 233 television stations, equating to 72 percent of coverage in the United States.9 Without any divestitures or application of the so-called UHF discount, this number would have exceeded the national ownership cap designated by FCC law.10 The deal seemed to be saved, however, when Sinclair expressed its plans to sell several of Tribune's stations once they were acquired, as well as some of its own, in order to stay below the threshold of American antitrust laws.11 During the negotiations between Sinclair and Tribune, the potential of any deal between the two blew a fuse. [...]it was discovered that Sinclair had plans to sell a Chicago station to Steven Fader, a Maryland car salesman, who happened to be a business associate and friend of David Smith (Sinclair's chairman).14 With some of the information that was turned over to the DOJ concerning the potential Sinclair-Tribune merger as part of the Hart-Scott-Rodino process also came correspondence concerning alleged business practices of some American broadcasting companies.15 This included allegations of information sharing of pacing information and certain other CSI.16 The allegations, however, did not include price fixing or any other unscrupulous behaviors by these broadcasting companies.17 As of June 2019, and as a result of the DOJ's investigation of the Sinclair-Tribune merger, several broadcasters and sales representative firms have signed consent decrees with the DOJ that include no fines and no admissions but put into place additional compliance measures to be followed going forward.