The Big Five of Commercial Media

After a number of mergers and acquisitions five powerful media conglomerates lead the world's content production and distribution. They operate on an international basis with subsidiaries all around the globe and engage in every imaginable kind of media industry.

Table: The World's Leading Media Companies

Media Company

 1998 Revenues

(in US$)

 Property/Corporate Information
AOL Time Warner (US)

 26,838.000.000*

 http://www.timewarner.com/corp/about/timewarnerinc/corporate/index.html
Disney (US)

 22,976.000.000

 http://www.disney.com
Bertelsmann (GER)

 16,389.000.000

http://www.bertelsmann.com/facts/report/report.cfm
News Corporation (AUS)

 12,841.000.000

 http://www.newscorp.com/public/cor/cor_m.htm
Viacom (US)

 12,100.000.000

 http://www.viacom.com/global.tin


(* Revenues of Time Warner only (merger with AOL took place in January 2000)

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Automation

Automation is concerned with the application of machines to tasks once performed by humans or, increasingly, to tasks that would otherwise be impossible. Although the term mechanization is often used to refer to the simple replacement of human labor by machines, automation generally implies the integration of machines into a self-governing system. Automation has revolutionized those areas in which it has been introduced, and there is scarcely an aspect of modern life that has been unaffected by it. Nearly all industrial installations of automation, and in particular robotics, involve a replacement of human labor by an automated system. Therefore, one of the direct effects of automation in factory operations is the dislocation of human labor from the workplace. The long-term effects of automation on employment and unemployment rates are debatable. Most studies in this area have been controversial and inconclusive. As of the early 1990s, there were fewer than 100,000 robots installed in American factories, compared with a total work force of more than 100 million persons, about 20 million of whom work in factories.

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