Why 1999 seems more like 1984

The newspaper headlines were more than telling - The Chicago Tribune's front page blared "Deal adds zest to CBS," calling CBS' new owner, Viacom, "hip." The Christian Science Monitor, on the other hand, questioned the CBS-Viacom merger with its "Is bigger better?" headline, citing the concentration of media control. Reasons for the two different perspectives on the same story are obvious: The Tribune is a major media conglomerate in and of itself, the Monitor is not.

Editorial bias aside, the fact remains: The CBS-Viacom combo is the biggest media merger ever. As soon as federal regulations governing television station ownership were relaxed, Viacom swiftly moved in, purchasing CBS for $37 billion.

While Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone was practically giddy at the press conference announcing the merger, American consumers should be anything but excited about the new media giant. We live in a society that dictates healthy competition and exchange in all markets, and the media market should be no exception.

But in the last few decades, competition is a word that has been all but drummed out of media circles. Rather, the power to distribute information to the masses has been slowly but surely slipping into the hands of the fortunate and monied few.

It is a trend that does not bode well for the future of media. Will the television-magazine PrimeTime Live ever present a serious, investigative piece on the Walt Disney Corporation? Probably not, considering that Mickey and Co. own the talking heads at ABC. From the evening news with Dan Rather to the latest Paramount Pictures release to the MTV music awards, CBS-Viacom will have a say. As varied as these media sound, the values of the corporation will undoubtedly bleed down into the rest of the company. In addition, there is the very real threat that Viacom's networks will become mere vehicles for self-promotion for the rest of the corporation's holdings.

Unfortunately, mergers among huge media giants seem to be the wave of the future. Hopefully, the listening, reading and viewing public will not be drowned by this virtual tsunami of homogenized information.

- This staff editorial was published Tuesday in the Daily Illini, University of Illinois's student newspaper.

09-16-99