Pew Asks, ‘Who Owns the Media?’

With regard to the accompanying info graphic, I asked a friend who is a consultant to the TV industry, who gave the following response:
I presume these numbers refer to the United States (not, say, Italy). If so, the statement that 1500 TV stations are owned by three corporations is wildly incorrect (the number of television stations owned by one company is limited by federal law). The largest single owner of stations is a company you’ve probably never heard of: Ion Media. It owns about 60 TV stations, most of which are scarcely watched.

All that said, media ownership is inexorably being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Whether a single company owns 500 or 50 stations doesn’t matter. Either number is too many.