If you were to take a more in depth look around your house, you’d be shocked to find what corporations have a major impact on your daily life. Despite the variety of brands adorning your shelves, a surprisingly small number of corporations are responsible for these entities, which act as nothing more than subsidiaries of the larger corporations.

These corporations have found their way into every aspect of daily activities – often venturing into multiple avenues in which to target their potential clients. Each element of your life is impacted by these major corporations.

While flipping through your Super Mega Ultra TV package of hundreds of channels, you may be shocked to find out that the same companies own most of these channels. In fact, these companies control a whopping 90 percent of all media played across the United States (1).

Media monopoly is so strong that the powers in charge have been nicknamed “The Big Six.” These six corporations include Comcast, News-Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS.

Not only do these companies control every major entertainment channel, but they also control the news and are responsible for providing information to the masses in video format.









Media

To make this matter worse, these same businesses are also responsible for media that is heard or read. CBS is only second to iHeartMedia (formally Clear Channel Communications) who owns 1200 radio stations to CBS’s 117 stations (2)(3). This is contrary to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 created by the FCC that states a company may own no more than 20 AM and 20 FM stations, which has since been revised to be handled on a case-by-case basis (4).

Food & Health

Go to your pantry and rotate the bottles and boxes so you see the backside. You’re bound to see the likes of Kraft, Coca-Cola, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Mars, Johnson & Johnson, and Unilever (5). You may be shocked to find that many of these same names are also in your medicine cabinet. These ten companies own hundreds of subsidiaries that brand everything from shampoo to ice cream to toilet paper.

Many of the companies even own their competitors. Procter & Gamble owns Dawn, Ivory, Joy, and Cascade dish soaps, as well as Tide, Cheer, and Gain laundry soaps.

Beverages are no different. While PepsiCo and Coca-Cola have an expectedly large roll in the beverage industry, Kraft and Nestle aren’t far behind. Even the beer industry has been monopolized. Outside of the booming craft beer world, corporate giant InBev owns 200 brands worldwide (6).