Last week, Viacom Inc. and CBS Corp. agreed to merge in a deal valued at about $37 billion, making Viacom the world’s second-largest entertainment titan after Time Warner Inc. Now all but NBC, Universal Studios Inc. and Sony Corp. have combined their TV and film forces into huge media conglomerates. So the Business Journal asks:

Does this concentration of huge entertainment corporations matter?

David Reeder [pix7-5lanm]

Bankruptcy Lawyer

Law Offices of David M. Reeder

My experience is that conglomerates come and go. Remember, in the ’60s the big business news was that just a few conglomerates were going to control world business. At that time, no one foresaw the rise of entrepreneurs and small business, and the fallout from junk-bond financiers. The fact that these mergers are happening now just points to the ebb and flow. The landscape won’t be the same 10 or even five years out.

Linda Baker [pic7-5lanm]

Vice President of Personal Giving

Arthritis Foundation

I wonder what it’s going to do in terms of media messages we’re going to receive. It’s like having one big bank a potentially scary thing having one or two people controlling the airwaves. I was also surprised at how many businesses these corporations own. Professionally, the only way it would affect us as a not-for-profit is in terms of fund raising. One of my big donors is a Fox person, and I was thinking, if this deal were with Fox, and this person lost their job, that would be $3 million in revenue gone, and I would be scared.

Michelle Garber

President/CEO

LegalSource Inc.

No. You have to assume they made a good business decision. You don’t merge two titans in an industry without a lot of forethought. If they fail, they fail. They have to live with the consequences.

Robert Caudill [pic6-14nm]

Regional Director

Wilson-Thorne Properties

No, I think that in every industry you’ll see these conglomerates. From a real estate point of view, Los Angeles has been severely impacted by mergers of this type the accounting firm and banking mergers have left huge holes in real estate. Downtown would have recovered a long time ago if the banking industry did not go through its round of mergers, which resulted in the move of many headquarters out of Los Angeles. But these two firms are not based here, so we’re not going to lose a headquarters. The organization will probably expand in Los Angeles. Mergers like this are growing more-diverse companies, and CBS and Viacom look on the surface to have two complementing products which need to be successful on a global basis.

Harry Paakkonen

Co-Owner

Mixin Pixls

In a way, it does. There are different ways to look at it because I work in the entertainment business, and it might have some business impact. It may make perfect financial sense, but I’m conscious of the trend of the (concentration of) media content in fewer and fewer hands. There’s several issues: one, it tends to make entertainment much more middle-of-the-road, and much blander, with everyone going for the same common denominator. It gives you less choices. Also, there may be conflict of interest with the news reporting. Say ABC and Disney, or CBS and Viacom, are reporting on other partners. I’m afraid it may compromise very critical investigative journalism. I’ve already seen, in the Disney/ABC deal, the blatant commercial advertisements for their other partners in their news articles. It makes news even more entertainment and less substance, and it makes you think that it’s not driven by giving people fair information but by selling the product.

Michael Stromme

Actor

It doesn’t affect me personally. If the entertainment audience can benefit from the merger and no one’s losing jobs and no one’s hurt because of it, I support it. But if it doesn’t really help people in the long run, then it’s just for financial reasons to acquire more money.