The Magical World of Media

October 16, 1923 a bit of magic was brought to the world with the creation of The Walt Disney Company also known as just plain Disney. Yes Disney brought fun, magical characters and movies to our lives like Mickey Mouse and Toy Story. Founded by Walt Disney and Roy Disney (Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio) turned into what we know as Disney in 1929. Disney is one of the largest media and entertainment conglomerates in the world. Freepress.com listed the big six media corporations of 2008 and Disney was second with their 2008 revenues at 37.8 billion dollars.

             

Disney owns ABC television network, a range of cable networks like ESPN, the Disney Channel, SOAPnet, A&E and Lifetime. Under the Disney umbrella there’s also 277 radio stations, music and book publishing companies, production companies like Touchstone, Miramax, Walt Disney pictures and Pixar Animation Studios. Can’t forget the cellular service Disney Mobile and Disney has many theme parks around the world. 

           

How can one company have their fingers in so many types of media and with holdings in so many companies within those types of media? Disney even has a couple of international channels. Its amazing finding out how much media Disney controls within the United States but it’s even more amazing to learn Disney has most of the world watching their media.

             

Little kids don’t need an introduction about Disney. Disney with their adorable cartoons and the classic saying everyone says “I’m going to Disney Land” what kid wouldn’t love that.

            

 Since Disney needs no introduction and everyone can recognize a Disney character with no hesitation, Disney gets the best kind of advertisement word of mouth. Everyone is talking about Disney and even other TV shows are adding Disney characters or making fun of The Disney Company. South Park had Mickey Mouse manipulating The Jonas Brothers performances to sell sex to little girls. That episode had no facts behind it of course and was met for entrainment only, but what if Disney was sending little signals out. Disney has a big enough control of the media to lead the general public to lean to something Disney prefers more.

             

It would be interesting to see what Walt Disney would think of his magical company now. Would he think this conglomerate controls too much or would he be happy with his success? I thought Disney controlled too much and that was before I looked at what Disney owns. Music, magazines, radios, programming, networks and much more; it really makes you think how much media you deal with in a signal day that is linked to Disney. I don’t see this company down sizing any time soon but at least Disney is doing it with cute, cuddly characters that don’t hurt your eyes when seeing your media being taken over.