Globo: Death of a Brazilian Media Empire?

By Carlos Castilho
MediaChannel.org

FLORIANOPOLIS, April 1, 2004 -- Think media ownership problems are limited to the U.S.? Think again. An on-going struggle in Brazil makes disputes over American-owned Big Media look like a game of Monopoly.

Known as the Platinum Venus, Globo holds a market position that even Time Warner bosses could envy: 60 percent of the television audience and as much as 80 percent of broadcast advertising in Latin America's largest media market. Its television production operations, centered around novelas, or soap operas, rank as the world's most prolific.

Holdings include papers, weekly magazines, radio stations, a television network, an Internet presence, cable, movies, telecommunications, records and books. Its brand is so omnipresent that many ordinary Brazilians assume that Globo is, in fact, a branch of Time Warner, meant to support that US media giant's interests in Brazil.

But now, after years of super-sizing its empire with foreign loans, Globo's golden age is coming to an end.

(La historia completa en: Mediachannel.org)