06 | April | 2014 | A Matter of Scale

MEDIA | INFOGRAPHICS | COMMENTARY |

Comcast said Thursday it had agreed to buy Time Warner Cable for $45 billion in a deal that would combine the two biggest cable companies in the United States.

Yes, this was the news that shocked the nation and threatened to make Comcast one of the largest service providers in the United States, arguably the world. Somehow the media managed to convince people it was no big deal and nothing would change for people who used their services. But there was more to it than that. This consolidation would not only cause people to lose their jobs, it would also cause organizations to have to worry that they would not be able to provide their services over the internet services that Comcast would now have even MORE control over. This is not just a struggle over customers, it is a struggle over content and who provides it. Don’t let anyone tell you this isn’t a problem. It is even bigger than it appears.

A few months ago, I wrote an article discussing the consolidation of media companies (Are You Still Looking for the Illuminati?) and how more and more of our media content is being generated and controlled by fewer and fewer organizations. I promised you an update to the graphic in the document so you could see how each of these mega-corporations held dominion over what you saw and heard. Even this chart isn’t quite perfect but it is closer than the last one.