“The familiar argument against such concentration is that, by giving a small number of companies too much control over the flow of information and content, it erodes democracy. But the problem isn’t just that a small number of companies run the media business right now; it’s that, under the current system, the same companies will likely be running the media business twenty years from now. Media concentration would be fine if there were genuine competition, but, practically speaking, there isn’t very much (at least, on the broadcast and programming side), thanks to the regulatory reforms of the early nineties (which, among other things, allowed TV networks to own their own shows, instead of having to buy them from outside studios) and the merger boom of the past few years.”