ABSTRACT
Media giant Time Warner also plans to launch a fifth American TV network. This would of course pose a serious threat to America’s existing national giants, ABC, CBS, NBC and the smaller FOX. This comes at a time when media companies are scrambling to take advantage of the fast growing trend towards multimedia entertainment, in which television and other services are brought into homes through combined phone and cable networks. Time Warner is a strong competitor; it owns one of Hollywood’s biggest movie studios, and is the top supplier of TV programmes to the existing networks, producing 26 prime time series. It operates the second largest cable network in the United States and owns the Home Box Office pay-TV network. It also has powerful music and publishing divisions to provide additional software. The big three networks have seen their market share halved since the 1970s and now control just 45 per cent of the US television industry. The networks have lost their market share to cable
television programmes, to satellite TV, to the FOX network and to the independent stations built around the booming syndication market.
