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Josh Silver: The Future of Journalism and Internet Access

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Commonwealth Club of California

Commonwealth Club

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Comcast-NBC Merger: FCC OKs New Era of Media Monopoly?

04 min 01 sec

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Free Press founder Josh Silver reviews the negative consequences of vertical media integration, like the recent Comcast-NBC merger, and criticizes the Obama administration for breaking campaign promises to uphold net neutrality and prevent the "excessive concentration of power in the hands of one corporation."
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01 hr 05 min 07 sec

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Encyclopædia Britannica Articles

monopoly: Exclusive possession of a market by a supplier of a product or service for which there is no substitute. In the absence of competition, the supplier usually restricts output and increases price in order to maximize profits. The concept of pure monopoly is useful for theoretical discussion but is rarely encountered in actuality. In situations where having more than one supplier is inefficient (e.g., for electricity, gas, or water), economists refer to “natural monopoly” (see public utility). For monopoly to exist there must be a barrier to the entry of competing firms. In the case of natural monopolies, the government creates that barrier. Either local government provides the service itself, or it awards a franchise to a private company and regulates it. In some cases the barrier is attributable to an effective patent. In other cases the barrier that eliminates competing firms is technological. Large-scale, integrated operations that increase efficiency and reduce production costs confer a benefit on firms that adopt them and may confer a benefit on consumers if the lower costs lead to lower product prices. In many cases the barrier is a result of anticompetitive behaviour on the part of the firm. Most free-enterprise economies have adopted laws to protect consumers from the abuse of monopoly power. The U.S. antitrust laws are the oldest examples of this type of monopoly-control legislation; public-utility law is an outgrowth of the English common law as it pertains to natural monopolies. Antitrust law prohibits mergers and acquisitions that lessen competition. The question asked is whether consumers will benefit from increased efficiency or be penalized with a lower output and a higher price. See also oligopoly.; monopoly on britannica.com
vertical integration: Form of business organization in which all stages of production of a good, from the acquisition of raw materials to the retailing of the final product, are controlled by one company. A current example is the oil industry, in which a single firm commonly owns the oil wells, refines the oil, and sells gasoline at roadside stations. In horizontal integration, by contrast, a company attempts to control a single stage of production or a single industry completely, which lets it take advantage of economies of scale but results in reduced competition.; vertical integration on britannica.com