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Arnold Kling has a Ph.D. in economics from MIT; founded homefair.com, one of the very first commercial websites, in 1994; separated from Homefair in January 2000 after it was sold to Homestore; is author of Under the Radar: Starting Your Internet Business without Venture Capital, and is an essayist. Send comments to us at econ@corante.com

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January 06, 2004

Some Reason on Media Concentration

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Posted by Arnold

And some much-needed common sense, from Ben Compaine.


If large segments of the public choose to watch, read, or listen to content from a relatively small number of media companies, that should not distract policy makers from the key word there: choose. At a time when such a fragmented audience is dividing itself among niche cable channels, tens of thousands of book titles published annually, and hyper-individualized Web surfing, it may even be socially positive that there are some mass audience shows, movies, and books that, like the Harry Potter series, give us something common to talk about. It may indeed be that at any given moment 80 percent of the audience is viewing or reading or listening to something from the 10 largest media players. But that does not mean it is the same 80 percent all the time, or that it is cause for concern.

Read the whole thing, especially if you're one of those people who panics about Clear Channel and Infinity "taking over."

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