Media ownership & Its forms

Media ownership (also known as media consolidation) is a commonly used term that refers to the majority of the media outlets being owned by a small number of corporations and especially by those who view such consolidation as detrimental, dangerous, or otherwise problematic to characterize ownership structure of mass media industries.

 Media ownership may refer to states of oligopoly or monopoly in a given media industry, or to the importance of a low number of media corporations. Large media conglomerates include, National Amusements, Viacom, CBS Corporation, Time Warner, News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, Sony, General Electric, Vivendi SA, Hearst Corporation, Organizações Globo and Lagardère Group.

 For example, movie production is known to be dominated by major studios since the early 20th Century; before that, there was a period in which Edison's Trust monopolized the industry. The music and television industries recently witnessed cases of media consolidation, with Sony Music Entertainment's parent company merging their music division with Bertelsmann AG's BMG to form Sony BMG and TimeWarner's The WB and CBS Corp.'s UPN merging to form The CW. In the case of Sony BMG, there existed a "Big Five" (now "Big Four") of major record companies, while The CW's creation was an attempt to consolidate ratings and stand up to the "Big Four" of American network (terrestrial) television.

 The print media display the greatest diversity of all, in both ownership and content. They range from daily to weekly newspapers, from news magazines to a range of special interest publications. The print media are usually in private hands. The main exceptions are likely to be authoritarian or dictatorial systems under which free elections are unlikely to be on the agenda. But there are also countries, such as some in northern Europe, where a public subsidy is paid to newspapers to ensure the political diversity of the press. In countries emerging from dictatorship, aid donors sometimes subsidize private newspapers with a similar aim. By and large, however, newspapers derive their income from advertising and sales revenue (with the former usually much more significant than the latter).   The ideal of the "Fourth Estate" - the media keeping a check over government - is perhaps more effective in the print media than broadcasting. At least some newspapers in any country are likely to conduct serious news investigations and o comment in a reasonably sophisticated manner on political developments. The same is not always true of broadcasters.

MEDIA OF PAKISTAN

In the early twenty-first century, the amount of print media in Pakistan declined precipitously while total circulation increased. From 1994 to 1997, the total number of daily, monthly, and other publications increased from 3,242 to 4,455 but had dropped to just 945 by 2003 with most of the decline occurring in the Punjab Province. However, from 1994 to 2003 total print circulation increased substantially, particularly for dailies (3 million to 6.2 million). Print media are published in 11 languages, but most are published in Urdu and Sindhi, and English-language publications are numerous. The press generally publishes free from censorship and has played an active role in national elections, but journalists often exercise self-censorship as a result of arrests and intimidation by government and societal actors. Most print media are privately owned, but the government controls the National Press Trust, a major newspaper publisher, and the Associated Press of Pakistan, one of the two major news agencies. The constitution guarantees the rights of free speech and press but also allows for government restrictions in cases of offenses against Islam, public morality, national security, and other circumstances. In fact, the government can fine and imprison those who broadcast material that is deemed inconsistent with “national and social values.”

MEDIA OWNERSHIP IN PAKISTAN

After partition due to financial constraints, print media was not so develop in Pakistan. After that many Urdu, English and other languages newspapers began to be published from different parts of the country. Regarding ownership, the person who is not a citizen of Pakistan shall not own or hold any interest in any newspaper printed or published in a province except with the previous approval of the government, and no such person shall, in any case, own or hold more than twenty-five percent of the entire proprietary interest of any such newspaper. Whether in the form of shares or by way of sole ownership or otherwise.

MAJOR PLAYERS ON PRINT MEDIA IN PAKISTAN

There are three major players on the print media market and in the media market in general.

1.         The Jang Group of Newspapers is Pakistan’s largest media group and publishes the Urdu language Daily Jang, The News International, Mag Weekly, and Awam. The group tends has at a moderate conservative perspective.

2.         The Dawn Group of newspapers is Pakistan’s second largest media group and produces an array of publications with that include the Star, Herald and the newspaper Dawn, which is its flagship. Dawn is considered a liberal, secular paper with moderate views. The Star is Pakistan’s most popular evening newspaper, and the Herald, is a current affairs monthly.

3.         Nawa-i-Waqt is an Urdu language daily newspaper and has one of the largest readerships in the country. It belongs to the Nawa-Waqt group, which also publishes the English newspaper, The Nation. Like The Nation, the Nawa-i- Waqt is a right wing, conservative paper. According to Javid Siddiq, resident editor, the paper stands for democracy and for an Islamic welfare state.

The organisation All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) represents major newspaper publishers and owners and is dominated by the media moguls. It was founded in 1953 by the major pioneering editors and publishers of the day to facilitate the exchange of views between editors and to protect the rights of newspapers. Today, APNS’s primary objective is to safeguard the commercial interests of its membership. If an advertiser defaults on payment, the newspaper company complains to the APNS. With 243 members, APNS will then pressure the company or the ad agency to either pay or be blacklisted.