tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post115817141604153582..comments2024-03-06T03:15:58.539-05:00Comments on <b>THE NEW REFORM CLUB</b>: Media Consolidation Reversing?Hunter Bakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14961831404331998743noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1158205505309532782006-09-13T23:45:00.000-04:002006-09-13T23:45:00.000-04:00The writing was on the wall back in 1989, when Son...The writing was on the wall back in 1989, when Sony acquired the "creative talents" of the Guber-Peters (Mr. Barbra Streisand) Entertainment Company by buying the whole shebang.<BR/><BR/>By the time the ashes fell to earth after those twits got to work, Sony had written off more than $5 billion.<BR/><BR/>As much as mega-media try to synthesize and assimilate talent, it can't be done. Human beings and their genius are not fungible. That fact gives hope to us all, in that Adam Smith kind of way. We geniuses are like cockroaches; no matter how big the boot, it can't stomp us all.<BR/><BR/>Up the establishment, man.Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8776899.post-1158179889762230222006-09-13T16:38:00.000-04:002006-09-13T16:38:00.000-04:00This appears to be a special case of a general eco...This appears to be a special case of a general economic truth: given some set of market conditions, in the absence of coercive interference, every enterprise, no matter how narrowly focused or how widely diversified, has an optimal size, at which its return on investment is maximized. An enterprise that grows beyond that size will become less profitable, and usually less viable as well. If external conditions change in a fashion that reduces the optimal size for a particular kind of enterprise, firms that have grown beyond that point will be well advised to slim down voluntarily, before the market puts them on its own notion of a reducing diet.<BR/><BR/>(The dynamics and consequences of <A HREF="http://www.eternityroad.info/index.php/weblog/screeds/giantism/" REL="nofollow"><B>State-induced giantism</B></A> form a special study.)Francis W. Porrettohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05862584203772592282noreply@blogger.com