Mass media in the United States
Many media entities are controlled by large for-profit corporations who reap revenue from advertising, subscriptions, and sale of copyrighted material.
[5] Theories to explain the success of such companies include reliance on certain policies of the American federal government or a tendency to natural monopolies in the industry, with a corporate media bias.
In 2023–24, United States was ranked 55th out of 180 countries (a drop of ten places from the previous year) and was given a "problematic" rating.
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today are the most circulated newspapers in the United States and are sold in most U.S.
Apart from its daily nationwide distribution, the term means that back issues are archived on microfilm by every decent-sized public library in the nation, and the Times' articles are often cited by both historians and judges as evidence that a major historical event occurred on a certain date.
Although USA Today has tried to establish itself as a national paper, it has been widely derided by the academic world as the "McPaper" and is not subscribed to or archived by most libraries.
However, since the late 1990s, this revenue source has been directly challenged by Web sites like eBay (for sales of secondhand items), Monster.com (jobs), and Craigslist (everything).
[12][13] The acquisition of Gannett by New Media Investment Group was completed on November 19, 2019, making the combined company the largest newspaper publisher in the United States.
La Opinión is the most read newspaper website in the United States, reaching more than 6 million readers each month.
Finally, besides the hundreds of specialized magazines that serve the diverse interests like Vanity Fair, People, Maxim, Consumer Reports, Sports Illustrated, and fashion magazines, like Vogue, Glamour, GQ, InStyle, Cosmopolitan and hobbies of the American people, like Motor Trend, Health, AARP the Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Bon Appétit, and Saveur there are also dozens of magazines published by professional organizations for their members, such as Scientific American for scientists, Communications of the ACM (for computer science specialists), IEEE Spectrum (for engineers), the ABA Journal (for lawyers), Businessweek and Forbes for business, Architectural Digest and Architectural Record for architects.
It's not a coordinated exodus for magazines in the United States but the transition from print's primacy to digital's that has started at the turn of the century.
Talk radio as a political medium has also exploded in popularity during the 1990s, due to the 1987 repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, which meant that stations no longer had to "balance" their day by programming alternative points of view.
But due to extensive concentration of media ownership stemming from the Telecommunications Act of 1996, radio companies could own not more than 8 local stations per area market.
[16] On August 13, 2019, CBS and Viacom officially announced their intention to merge, with the combined company to be named ViacomCBS.
These networks are not as widely distributed over-the-air as their English counterparts, available mostly in markets with sizable Latino and Hispanic populations; several of these over-the-air networks are alternatively fed directly to cable, satellite and IPTV providers in markets without either the availability or the demand for a locally based owned-and-operated or affiliate station.
The income received from the government is insufficient to cover expenses and stations also rely on corporate sponsorships and viewer contributions.
Films such as Showgirls, The Secret of NIMH, and The Shawshank Redemption, which may have performed poorly in their theatrical run, were now able to find success in the video market.
Rodriguez directed the 1992 action film El Mariachi, which was a commercial success after grossing $2 million against an initial before-production budget of $7,000.
In 2011, El Mariachi was inducted into the Library of Congress to be preserved as part of its National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
With the rise of the DVD in the 21st century, DVDs have quickly become even more profitable to studios and have led to an explosion of packaging extra scenes, extended versions, and commentary tracks with the films.
[citation needed] DVD and high-definition Blu-ray sales have substantially declined with the rise of video on demand, especially over-the-top streaming services.
The United States has the largest video games presence in the world in terms of total industry employees.
Aside from web portals and search engines like Google, the number one visited website in the United States, popular websites include Instagram, TikTok, Apple, Netflix, Hulu, Microsoft, YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Amazon, Yelp, IMDb, Reddit, Pinterest, eBay, TripAdvisor, Indeed, Spotify, Merriam-Webster, Quora, Fandom and Twitch.
Online streaming now makes it possible to watch everything from live news and sports to classic movies to modern TV favorites in their own time, on any device.
With the popularity of online streaming rising cable companies are having to extend offers to compete in this 655 billion dollar digital market.
Sony Pictures has been an exception, and Fox sold its film properties to Disney in 2019, retaining its television and radio broadcast operations.
This conglomeration gives owners the ability to reuse the same content between theaters, broadcast, and streaming, and to use intellectual property from media franchises they own, across businesses without worrying about licensing.
Constantly looking for fresh source material, the major entertainment companies often compete to buy the rights to adapt books and independent films; Disney and Warner Bros.
