The ongoing battle between Netflix and Paramount Skydance to purchase the US entertainment company Warner Brothers is not just a business competition for monetary gain. It reflects a rising trend in how media ownership looks in the US and around the globe.
Netflix might be interested in integrating Warner studios and streaming services to increase its subscriptions, but Paramount is keen on news media concentration to add Warner-owned CNN to its leading news channel CBS. This goes beyond being a business deal and suggests a search for political hegemony through powerful news tools.
US President Donald Trump’s friend and political financier Larry Ellison holds a significant stake in Paramount Skydance, and his son David is chairman and CEO of the company after the merger that brought RedBird Capital into the group.
RedBird partnered with Abu Dhabi’s IMI in a venture that tried to buy the British rightwing newspaper the Daily Telegraph in a deal that the UK authorities blocked.
Since Trump’s return to the White House last year, his campaign against the media has been relentless. He has formed a digital media company through his family to propagate his views. He has also actively encouraged his circle of businesspeople to acquire media outlets he considers to be hostile to him.
Although Trump understands the role of the media in shaping public opinion as a result of his time as a TV celebrity with his own show, the tactics he is using are not new. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his early days tried to control the media in his country by asking business loyalists to acquire private media companies in order to guarantee the silencing of any criticism of his policies.
Over the last few decades there has been vocal concern regarding global media monopolies, with the Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch’s media empire spanning TV channels from Fox to Sky, as well many large newspapers in the US, UK, and Australia. One notable difference in earlier days was the existence of a powerful public-sector media, which was able to somewhat offset the Murdoch effect, as it still is today, though perhaps less effectively.
Fast forward to the present day, and most public-sector media institutions are in dire straits, suffering from under-funding and editorial deterioration. Trump has taken the decision to cancel the funding of public broadcasters in the US, while the BBC in the UK and similar public broadcasters in France, Germany, and other countries have seen a significant decline.
Governments have justified this by quoting budgetary constraints, but external pressure has in fact forced the hands of many governments to submit to private interests.
The concentration of media ownership in the hands of a few conglomerates and wealthy individuals today is playing a role in the distortion of democracy in the West. This is most evident in the US, where a few groups control the news and entertainment market.
Big companies like Paramount, Warner, Comcast, and Amazon own almost all the news outlets that shape public opinion, and further concentration is in play through mergers and acquisitions. Those who own the news outlets are making sure that no vetting of their practices or those of their political allies is allowed.
DMG media, News UK, and Reach control 90 per cent of UK national newspaper circulation, while TV news is fragmented between a few private companies and the public broadcaster the BBC. In France, a few billionaires and industrial conglomerates control the vast majority of media outlets. The same can be said about Italy and the other Western democracies.
Closer to home, media concentration is evident through state-affiliated companies or businesspeople close to the authorities. As a result, the media and broadcasting establishment around the world is signalling a paradigm shift in relations between politics and business, and this is having a wider social impact.
Over a century ago, during the time of the great European empires, politics often led business. Governments, through taking over colonies, would benefit business by opening trade routes and the exploitation of these colonies’ natural resources. In return, various businesses would finance the governments’ wars and help with the control of vast empires. Yet, the call was always for politics first and then business would follow.
Following the two world wars, the European empires were on the verge of collapse, and their governments had become weary. At this stage, businesses found themselves on a level playing field in terms of their influence when compared to that of public institutions.
However, towards the end of the last century, businesses retook firm control over governments, first through financing politicians’ campaigns for public office and second by controlling media outlets that determined election outcomes.
However, while this narrative may well be applicable to the traditional media, the new media has seen a slightly different case of corporate hegemony. The “Magnificent Seven” of US technology companies control the world’s technology, and five of these, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), Amazon, and Microsoft, control its digital media.
These huge companies, owned by multi-billionaires, are often in pursuit of economic and financial benefits to further their growth. In order to guarantee their interests, they use the media to manipulate politics. Headquartered in the US, these companies have unprecedented global reach, and this has forced other countries, especially in the EU, to implement laws regulating their impact.
The US investigation into foreign countries’ alleged interference in American domestic elections using social media is still fresh in the minds of many. The same claims have been made in the UK and other countries. Despite the fact that none of these claims have been proven, they show that the establishment is wary of the trend that sees the media (i e business) increasingly impacting politics.
Businesses are not only financing governments by buying debt to help them budget their deficits, but they are also actively shaping politics directly through political donations or are using their media ownership indirectly to do so.
Some might think that to counter the concentration of the media in the hands of a few wealthy private owners, a revival of public ownership is necessary. But the fact is that we are likely past this point with no way of going back to it.
The media imperialism being practised by the wealthy is part of an ongoing paradigm shift that has been taking place since the 1980s. This has diluted the power of national governments, threatening the foundations of the nation-state.
The writer is a London-based seasoned journalist.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 19 March, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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