Controlling Prime-Time: Organizational Concentration and Network Television Programming Strategies

Social scientists have argued that concentration of ownership among media companies reduces diversity in media content, and a similar rationale was used to justify regulations that prohibited television net- works from owning the series they broadcast. In this article, we analyze the rhetorical claims used by proponents and opponents of ownership regulation during an era when the FCC was phasing out its Financial interest and Syndication Rules and assess the impact of deregulation on broadcast networks' reliance upon outside program suppliers for new prime-time series.