Report: Media Consolidation Shuts Out Female and Minority Owners

From The Louisiana Weekly, September 25, 2006:

As the Federal Communications Commission considers sweeping changes to the nation's media landscape, Free Press released a new report last week on female and minority media ownership that shows the consequences of further consolidation.

The new study, "Out of the Picture," is the first complete assessment and analysis of female and minority ownership of full-power commercial broadcast television stations. The report argues that the FCC has abandoned its responsibility to monitor and foster the diversity of media owners, while ignoring the impact of its own policies.

The report was done by the media watchdog group Free Press. Among the findings:

- Women comprise 51 percent of the entire U.S. population, but own only 4.97 percent of all TV stations.

- Minorities make up 33 percent of the entire U.S. population, but own only 3.26 percent of all stations.

- While the level of female and minority ownership has advanced in other industries since the late 1990s, it has worsened in the broadcast sector.

- Hispanic- or Latino-owned stations reach just 21.8 percent of the Latino TV households in the United States.

- 91 percent of African-American TV households are not reached by a black-owned TV station.

- Markets with minority owners are significantly less concentrated than markets without them — even if the size of the market is held constant.

The complete report is available at http://www.stopbigmedia.com/files/out_of_the_picture.pdf