afloweroutofstone:

I’d like to thank The American Prospect for giving me the opportunity today to publish my first ever article in an actual established outlet, hopefully the first of many. Here’s why I think we need to break up the Walt Disney Company.

This has been an incredible year for the Walt Disney Company. Not only has Avengers: Endgame become the best-selling movie in box office history, but Disney currently holds all four slots for this year’s top-earning films. However, the company’s dominance isn’t quite something to celebrate.

At the moment, almost 38 percent of all U.S. box office sales in 2019 have gone to a Disney-owned movie, down from a peak of over 40 percent earlier this year. And that’s even before coming releases of Frozen 2, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, and Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker. As we can see by looking at the U.S. box office over the last 30 years, Disney has more than doubled its already significant market share in just five years, reaching an unprecedented point in modern history for a film company…

Within the next couple of years, there is a good chance that the majority of all money made from wide-release movies will go into the pockets of the Walt Disney Company. Even if you consider yourself a dedicated Disney fan, this should concern you…

The Walt Disney Company is no longer the gentle giant of film and animation of yesteryear. Today, Disney is a multinational corporate conglomerate that takes in over $10 billion a year in profits alone. Its consistent growth and strategy of buying out other firms has put the company in a position of nearly unprecedented power in the U.S. media market, and thus in the global media market as well.

This position gives Disney the ability to offer lower-quality products, crush competitors, squeeze profits from other markets, influence politicians in its favor, and more. As the controversy around modern monopolies heats up, it is becoming clear that we need a generalized revitalization of antitrust law in the United States. As part of such a campaign, Disney too must be identified as a monopolistic corporate titan in severe need of being broken up into a number of smaller companies in order to restore both fair competition and the sanctity of American democracy.