Disney is turning into a monopoly, decreasing the standard of entertainment and discouraging independent artists from entering the industry. 

By Lauren Penington

Disney’s control over the entertainment industry is growing daily. Here are the most important of Disney’s current assets. 

Companies: 

1. ABC
2. ESPN (Stake)
3. Touchstone Pictures
4. Marvel
5. Lucasfilm
6. A&E (Split equity with Hearst Corporation)
7. The History Channel (Split equity with Hearst Corporation)
8. Lifetime (Split equity with Hearst Corporation)
9. Pixar
10. Hollywood Records
11. Vice Media (Stake)
12. Core Publishing
13. Fox

Brands: 

1. The Star Wars Franchise
2. The Muppets Franchise 
3. The Marvel Cinematic Universe
4. Disney Princesses/Princes
5. The Chronicles of Narnia Franchise
6. The Pirates of the Caribbean Franchise
7. Pixar Films 
8. The Winnie the Pooh Franchise
9. The Indiana Jones Franchise
10. Grey’s Anatomy (and other popular ABC shows)

In the midst of the popular brands that dominate the market, you’d be hard pressed to find ones not associated with Disney. Although, Disney creates a variety of content, their actions continue to narrow the industry as they acquire more companies. Even if Disney is not a monopoly at the moment, it is quickly approaching. 

What does this mean for the industry? A monopoly gives Disney control over many aspects of the industry as being the main supplier. This monopoly allows Disney to supply a line of inferior products that people will still buy into.

For instance, the latest string of live-action movies. Although they have changed a few things, the live-action movies are essentially the same as the originals. Normally, such obvious rip-offs would not succeed in Hollywood, but Disney’s standing has brought it clout.

Additionally, this ties in with another downside of monopolies: they lose the desire to innovate. Although Disney is still creating some new content at this point, we have already seen evidence of lost innovation in the previous examples of live action recreations. 

Due to the fact that Disney owns such a wide variety of companies and brands, they rake in a large profit. This increases their funds exponentially allowing them to take more companies under their wings, such as their recent takeover of 20th Century Fox. This increases the issue of monopoly, upsetting the balance of the economy by growing Disney’s share of the economy. 

As much as we enjoy Disney, we have to come to terms with the situation at hand. The entertainment industry will lose more variety and creativity. It will become a pit of repeated movies and plots, offering nothing original.