If Fox buys Time Warner…

I don’t know how real the prospect of Fox (through its year old post-News Corp split parent company 21st Century Fox) is, but its quite intriguing.

Here, in 2014, there are a small number of companies that own a lot of (traditional) media properties.  They are:

Comcast (owner of NBC Universal)
Viacom
CBS Corporation (spun off from Viacom)
Disney
News Corporation
21st Century Fox (spun off from News Corp.)
Time Warner

That is only seven companies, or 5 if you consider the pairs of Viacom/CBS and News/Fox as single entities due to the same ownership.  The Big 5 can go down to 4, if a Fox/Time Warner deal actually happens.

This is very dangerous for many reasons.  I may share those reasons in depth over time, if  I feel like it.  However, it is very simple.  The few major companies that control much of the media may become fewer…