Media became an industry in the 20th century. Before it had been a means of transmitting information. New technology and economies of scale enabled the media to become global. Media market leaders became more and more dominant and invested more, and this in turn attracted more readers, which attracted more advertising revenue, greater economies of scale, and more money to invest in attracting more readers. The 20th century also created a clear distinction between the quality and popular press which continues today. The vast majority of the national papers launched in the early 20th century were populated papers operating on the 'mass-market leads to more advertising revenue' model. However, the quality papers did not follow that business model. The quality papers (which have quality websites) carry a large proportion of news and current affairs material and have not followed the human interest, tabloid headlines, sensationalist or prurient stories to attract mass audiences that the tabloids have in the search for the readerships of millions. The 'quality' newspapers have created fewer media barons and empires: they operate on a quality, not quantity, principle. They deliver smaller readerships to advertisers, but their readerships are affluent elites with plenty of disposable income. Advertisers will pay more for access to those groups and thus the qualities do not require such large readerships. Quality newspapers tend to generate about 70% of their income from adverts, compared to 40% for the popular tabloids that make more through sales of their papers.
In the UK there was increased concentration of ownership of media after 1945-1947-1989 saw the three biggest press groups increase their share of the market by more than 30% and by 1995 they sold three out of four national papers sold in Britain. Media groups now tend to be owned by institutional shareholders rather than individuals, which has limited the power of the individual media barons.
Newspapers also remained heavily dependent on advertising. In the 1950s and 1960s paper circulation fell while cost of production continued to rise. Then came the most significant development of the postwar period, which was the introduction of new technology to printing and publishing in the 1980s. This revolution involved the replacement of old ways of printing papers with new computerized processes. This allowed media barons like Rupert Murdoch to break the power of the print unions whose control of the printing process had given them great leverage and bargaining power. Photos are now transmitted digitally, stories are e-mailed from across the globe, and perhaps more importantly scoops are announced on websites by freelancers running their own fairly small on-line media agencies.
At the beginning of the 21st century, however, the majority of North American Newspapers are local rather than national. There are around 1500 daily local newspapers in the US. Even the well-known qualities like The Washington Post and The New York Times don’t really circulate outside the northeastern United States. Most Americans read a local daily newspaper, such as LA Times, Boston Globe, Atlanta Constitution and Journal. Virtually all the national and international news carried by local papers in the US is supplied by news agencies, especially Associated Press and United Press International. This leads to a lower level of diversity of reporting in the US and a higher fulfillment of demand for news being met by the broadcast media. Local titles such as The New York Times and Washington Post have a national influence, if not a national readership, because they are the papers read by the politicians in Washington, many local papers follow their lead on stories, and because even the TV networks do so as well.
Overall, the 20th century was marked by the inexorable rise of media power. The great historian Carlyle predicted this in the 19th century when he coined the term 'fourth estate' to describe the rising power of the press and reporters. The 20th century began with only very few media channels, such as local newspapers, and ended with multiple channels of vastly increased range, scope and sophistication. The power of media and its rise created powerful media barons who have been able to influence the course of history. Media and power became closely intertwined. Media and political power, whether on a democratic on non-democratic basis, were inextricably linked. The following are the few examples of those who have extended the power and influence of media, sometime for good, and sometimes for nefarious, purposes:
Beaverbrook, 1st Baron (1879 – 1964) Canadian-born British newspaper proprietor and Conservative politician. Born William Maxwell Aitken in New Brunswick, his newspapers included the Daily Express, which became, under his rule, one of the best selling newspapers in the world, as well as the Sunday Express and the Evening Standard. Hearst (qv) commented that Beaverbrook applied tabloid methods to broadsheets. Beaverbrook's papers notoriously reflected his own political agenda quite closely (notably in imperial Free Trade, in favour of Edward VIII during the abdication crises). He boasted that his newspapers were run for influence, not for profit. He said that the modern press was 'a flaming sword that will cut through any political armour'. The journalist Malcolm Muggeridge claimed that, whenever Beaverbrook felt unease at the thought of dying, his editors would commission articles proving the existence of life after death. Beaverbrook would then read the articles and be relieved of his fears. Beaverbrook was a war reporter for the Canadian government in World War I, then served in the British Cabinet, as Minister for Propaganda and Information. He was elevated to the peerage by Lloyd George. Lady Astor dismissed him as 'Lord Been-A-Crook'. During World War II, he served in Churchill's war cabinet as Minister of Aircraft Production during the Battle of Britain (1940), Minister of Supply (1941-42), Minister of War Production (1942) and Lord Privy Seal (1943-45). His newspaper group was dismembered after his death in 1964.
Goebbels, Josef (1897-1945) German Nazi politician. As Hitler's Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda (1933-45), Goebbels devised many propaganda campaigns, most notably for the glorification of Hitler and the Nazi regime and, most sinisterly, against the Jews. Propaganda was one of the more powerful aspects of the Nazi regime and Goebbels was its controlling hand and instigator. He made use of every technique of mass psychology propaganda, cinema and radio to build base of support for the Nazi regime. Gobbles is sometimes described as a marketing genius, though he himself conceded that his techniques derived in large part from the mass propaganda techniques developed in the USSR. His maxims include: 'Never lose sight of the fundamental principle of all propaganda, the constant repetition of the most effective arguments' and ' the more the movement grows, the more we must exploit technology'. He and his wife committed suicide shortly after Hitler, having also poisoned all their children. SEE ALSO RIEFENSTAHL
Graham, Katherine (1917-2001) American Newspaper proprietor. Following the suicide of her husband in 1963 she took control of the Washington Post, and was publisher of the paper 1969-79. She gave full backing to her editor Benjamin Bradlee's decision to publish the so-called 'Pentagon Papers', the Pentagon's own 'secret history' of the Vietnam War, in defiance of both legal advice and the US government, and gave full support to the journalist Woodward and Bernstein during their 1972 investigation of the Watergate scandal, support which led to exposure and fall of Richard Nixon. Her reign at the Washington Post proved the power of media to unseat even the most powerful man in the world.
Hearst, William Randolph (1863-1951) founder of the Hearst Corporation. Hearst was born on April 29, 1863, in San Francisco, California, as the only child of George Hearst, a self-made multimillionaire miner and rancher. In 1887, at 23 he inherited the San Francisco Examiner which his father, George Hearst, accepted as payment for gambling debt. Trained initially as a newspaper reporter and influenced by Joseph Putilizer, Hearst revolutionized popular journalism and newsprint. He was, along with Joseph Putilizer, viewed as the pioneer of 'yellow journalism'. Much of what we take for granted nowadays as classic tabloid journalism was pioneered by Hearst: 'mass appeal' editorial content; interconnected newspaper chains; top writers as 'star' journalist (he employed Mark Twain, Jack London and Stephen Crane); bold banner headlines, lavish illustrations such as halftone newsprint photos; colour comic strips; the use of the latest technology applied to journalism as well as heavy promotion and marketing of the newspaper itself (see his editorial guidelines below). At the pinnacle of his power, he owned 28 major newspaper and 18 magazines, along with several radio stations and film companies. His worldwide publishing empire eventually would include 32 major city papers; 13 magazines; King Features Syndicate; radio and TV stations; Metrotone News; and movie and book companies. Hearst turned his newspaper into a combination of investigative reporting and sensationalism. Hearst was a member of the United States House of Representatives (1903-07). In the 1920s Hearst built a castle on a 240,000 acre ranch in San Simeon, California. The Great Depression weakened his financial position and by 1940 he had lost personal control of his vast communications empire. He became pro Nazi in 1930s and staunch anti-Communist in the 1940s. He is generally regarded to be the basis for the character of Charles Foster Kane in Orson Welles' legendary film, Citizen Kane (1941), which he tried to have banned.
Hearst Newspaper Editorial Guidelines (1993)
1. Make a paper for the nicest kind of people of the great middle class. Don’t print a lot of dull stuff that people are supposed to like and don’t.
2. Omit thins that will offend nice people. Avoid coarseness and a low tone. The most sensation news can be told if told properly.
3. Make your headlines clear and concise statements of interesting acts. They should answer the question: What is the news? Don’t allow copyreaders to write headlines that are too smart or clever to be intelligible.
4. The front page is your forum. Put important items and personal news about well-known people there. Sometimes condensed a big story to go on the first page rather than run it longer inside the paper.
5. Nothing is more wearisome than mere words. Have our people tell stories briefly and pointedly. Let people get the facts easily. Don’t make them work at it.
6. Please instruct copyreaders to rewrite long sentences into several short ones. And please try to educate the reporters to write short sentences in the first place.
7. Photographs of interesting events with explanatory diagrams are valuable. Make every picture worth its space.
8. If you cannot show conclusively your own paper's seniority, you may be sure the public will never discover it.
Malone, John (1941- ) American entrepreneur, known as the 'Godfather of Cable Television'. A former researcher with AT&T and then a management consultant, Malone is noted for the development of cable television as well as 'interactive TV', the Holy Grail of media investment speculation just before the Internet boom. His company, TCI, grew rapidly throughout the 1980s. He invested heavily in programming services. TCI was merged into AT&T, which made Malone a personal fortune. In 1990 Malone became chairman of Liberty Media, which he continues to lead today. Liberty has stakes in a wide variety of cable channels such as Discovery (50%), Court TV (50%), and 98% of home shopping network QVC. In addition, Liberty Media is one of the largest shareholders of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (17%). In 2001 AT&T spun off Liberty Media as part of its strategic plan to split into several companies. Liberty Media completed a spin off of its own in 2004 by separating its international assets into a new company.
Maxwell, Robert (1923- 91) British media owner, publisher, and Labour politician. Born Robert Hoch in Slovakia, he founded Pergamon Press in 1949 and was chairman of Mirror Group Newspaper Ltd (1984-91). A ruthless entrepreneur, he funded his expansion in the media in the 1970s and 1980s largely through financial leverage, and was later discovered, by legerdemain. In the UK, he became Robert Murdoch's main newspaper rival in the tabloid market. Maxwell's death by drowning is generally believed to have been the result of suicide as his financial liabilities were about to be exposed. After his death, it was revealed that he had stolen large sums of money from his employees' pension funds, and his once highly influential publishing empire was broken up.
Murdoch, Rupert (1931- ) creator of News Corporation, formed in 1980 from diverse companies, the world's largest media-entertainment-communications empire, which controls both media content and distribution. News Corp is the world's only truly vertically integrated media company. Murdoch was born in Australia into a news-paper-owning family. In 1950s he inherited his first paper, the Adelaide News, from his father, Melbourne publisher Sir Keith Murdoch. He made continuous acquisitions across the planet. In the 1960s, it was Sydney (the Mirror), London (the News of the World and the Sun); in the 1970s, New York (the New York Post); in the 1980s, Hollywood (20th Century Fox and Fox TV) and again London (acquiring The Times and Sunday Times) and satellite television in the UK, called BSkyB; in the 1990s, Asia (Star Television). News Corp holdings now include a lion's share of the newspaper industry in Australia, about one-third of British newspaper and BSkyB, through which pay-per-view was introduces to the UK in 1996. in the U.S. News Corp owns film and TV interests, newspapers, book publishers (HarperCollins), sports teams, and several other companies such as TV Guide.
Northcliffe, Viscount (1865-1922) British newspaper proprietor. Born Alfred Harmsworth in Dublin, he founded the Daily Mail (1896), The Daily Mirror (1903), and bought The Times in 1908. His brother, Viscount Rothermere (born Harold Harmswoth) joined him and proved to gifted in garnering advertising revenue, which came to be the dominant source of (including Comic Cuts, famously labeled as 'Amusing Without Being Vulgar') became one of the world's largest media empires of its time, with a specific marketing slant towards the new reading public of literate working men and (especially) women. Northcliffe's papers were initially regarded with contempt by the British establishment. Lord Cecil's view on the Daily Mail was typical of the upper class reactions of the time: 'a newspaper for office boys written by office boys'. However, Northcliffe's genius for flattering and understanding his essentially educated working class and lower middle-class readership, resulted in massive sales. His advice to his journalists was always 'Explain, Simplify, Clarify', and his shrewd assessment of the newspaper business remains perfectly valid today: News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress, all the rest is advertising'.
Pulitizer, Joseph (1847-1911) Hungarian-born American newspaper proprietor. His New York World was notably aggressive in its campaigns, perhaps most notably for organized labour, and for war against Spain the 1890s. He founded the annual Pulitizer Prizes in 1917, which award excellence in American journalism, literature, drama and music.
Rothermere, Viscount see NORTHCLIFFE.
Turner, Ted (1938-) a pioneer of global media and a strong believer in the acquisition of content, after rebuilding his late father's outdoor advertising business in Atlanta, Turner acquired a failing independent TV station in 1970, successfully upgraded its programming and bought Major League Baseball's Atlanta Braves franchise. Recognizing cable TV's potential, he rented satellite transmission time to transform WTBS into the US's first cable superstation. He next creates the all-news, all-day Cable News Network (CNN) and TNT cable network. CNN, despite widespread predictions of disaster, became a global 24-hour all news cable channel and soon proved its worth with minute-by-minute coverage of such events as the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986 and the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Turner bought Hanna-Barbera's cartoon studio and MGM's film library, created the Cartoon Network and, in 1995, following a failure to buy CBS, merged his media company with time Warner to create a $17 billion conglomerate. He is also widely known for his philanthropy.
Source: Collins Dictionary for Marketing
