The Washington Post– best known as the Post, is the most widely circulated American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. The Post distinguished itself from the other dailies through its extensive coverage on the political aspects of the White House, Congress and the U.S government workings. With its huge national audience, the daily broadsheet is published in Washington, D.C., and its bordering states Maryland and Virginia. It was also the first newspaper to deliver on Sundays as well, becoming the city’s first newspaper to deliver news all week long.

History

Stilson Hutchins, an American publisher and newspaper reporter, established The Washington Post in the year 1877. It was initially published with four pages priced at 3 cents a copy. The Post later acquired the then competing newspaper The Washington Union.  The Post along with The Washington Union Published under the name The Washington Post and Union as a combined newspaper from the Globe Building with a circulation of 13,000. 

The newspaper’s ownership changed from time to time as it struggled financially and editorially for more than half a century since its establishment.  As its freehold changed hands it resulted in a change in the political stance of the newspaper from being a Democratic Party Allegiant to becoming extremely Conservative in terms of its news publication until 1905.

It was later bought by Graham Meyer in 1933 who went on to restore the Post’s disposition, highlighting a sound and individualistic editorial stance and rigorous, precise, and well-written coverage.

The post became notable for its elucidate reporting. Herbert L.Block, an American editorial cartoonist, gave the editorial page of the Post a leading-edge that brought it a wide readership. Under Graham, the Post also acquired a staunch internationalist outlook.

Who Owns It

It is currently owned by Nash Holdings, a Jeff Bezos authorized holding company.

Bezos bought it for $250 million from the Graham family in 2013 who’ve been the owners of the daily since 1933 and who are known to revive the newspaper reputation. Upon the purchase of the Post Bezos hired Frederick Joseph Ryan Jr. as the CEO and publisher of the Washington Post.

The alliance between the e-commerce giant and the newspaper converted the Amazon Prime members into Washington Post digital subscribers by offering them a trial subscription and later converting them to paid subscribers.

Bezos ownership brought the Post a more digital focus and acclaimed global readership.

The Major Stockholders

From the time when the newspaper originally started in the year 1877 to now, it has 7 major stockholders. However, Graham Holdings retained the daily for more than half a century from 1933 to 2013 until Nash Holdings got hold of it in 2013.

Public trade

The public trade of the Washington Post started in the year 1971 when their Class B common stocks were put on a sale priced at $26 per share.

Annual Revenue

The company generates annual revenue of  $5.5B.

Employee diversity

The Washington, D.C headquartered company has more than 3,500 employees. With 37.6 per cent female employees and 47.6 percent ethnic minorities there is a distinct diversity within the employees of the Washington Post. However, its employees lack discernibly in terms of political diversity. 

Circulation

As of 2019, the daily circulation of the Post is recorded as 52,059 within the United States.

Digital Readership 

The Washington Post has digital unique visitors ranging from 100 million to 120 million.

The e-paper, called the e-Replica, is a replica of the printed copy available at the newsstand.

The subscription of the Washington Post costs 99/- month and 500/- a year. With a yearly subscription of 1000/- that provides unlimited access on the web, a shareable bonus subscription and 30-day digital passes along with downloadable e-books written by their Journalists. 

Slogan

Democracy Dies in Darkness is the official slogan of the Washington Post which was adopted in the year 2017 and first appeared on its masthead in the same year. The daily’s recent focus has been National politics and the federal government. 

Awards

The newspaper won many awards including 69 Pulitzer Prizes and the 2020 Webby Award for News and Politics in the Social category.

Wrapping up

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Alphabet Inc. was started in the year 2015 by Larry Page and  Sergey Brin. The two co-founders remained as its shareholders. It is a California based multinational conglomerate. Alphabet Inc. is a collection of companies, of which Google is the largest. It was created by restructuring the legal, operational and other structures of Google. Alphabet Inc. garnered the title of the world’s fourth-largest company in terms of revenue.

Key people behind Alphabet Inc

The key people who took over Alphabet are John L Hennessy, Sundar Pichai and Ruth Porat.

John L Hennessy

John is the chairman of Alphabet Inc. He was an American computer scientist and businessman.

Ruth Porat

Ruth Porat is the Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet Inc. ever since 2015. She is a British American business executive.

Sundar Pichai

Upon the completion of the restructuring of the Alphabet inc. Sundar Pichai stepped into a new position in it. He is the CEO of Alphabet Inc along with its subsidiary Google. He is also the product engineer of the company. He is an Indian- American business executive.

How does it work

Alphabet is about the plethora of businesses flourishing through strong leaders. The model behind Alphabet is the CEO of each business in which Alphabet Inc holds a stake works with the two co-founders in a way that both parties get served. Meanwhile, Sergey and Larry handle rigorously the capital allocation and execution of both the businesses. 

Alphabet follows segment reporting in which the financials of Google are reported separately from those for the rest of the businesses owned by it.

Revenue model

Alphabet inc. is a digital conglomerate and billions of dollars worth of company comprising many subsidiaries and google being the biggest of them.

Alphabet’s major share of revenues is generated by the services they provide like, browsing, searching, mobile Operating system, interactive platforms for remote working, office tools, electronic mailing system, streaming services. Cloud computing services under the umbrella Google cloud are generating revenues at a soaring growth rate due to magnanimous chunks of data being generated by the technology world every second.

But the best bet of Alphabet inc. to date being google services, which account for at least 92% of the total revenues. Along with this advertising is also becoming a key part of revenue generation, thanks to the powerful data analytics workforce which is backing the tech giants in making tailor-made advertisements according to the client needs.

Other honorable developments of Alphabet like automated vehicles service, Waymo, and stadia also seem to be contributing fortunes in the upcoming years. 

Subsidiaries

Calico

It is a United States-based biotech company which was founded by Bill Gates and is backed by Alphabet Inc. Calico is aimed at increasing the average lifespan of humankind across regions by fighting various physiological factors which enhance senescence.

Capital G

Capital G can be regarded as the venture capitalist and financing wing of alphabet inc. which concentrates and strategically invests in startups dealing with big data, financial technology, cybersecurity, and e-learning.

Wing

This is the subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. which develops technology to back the drone-based freight system.

Sidewalk

It is the branch of Alphabet inc. which deals with Developing Urban Infrastructure and enhancing Urban living by infusing technology to transform urban livelihoods into inter-connected, sustainable, self-propelling and eco-friendly clusters.

Deep mind

Deep Mind is the British intelligence backed subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. which is involved in developing the external neural networks which mimic the short term memory of the human brain to store and process information about external resources, machines and entities. Deepmind is currently sprawled over the United States, Canada and England.

Waymo

Waymo LLC is the self-driving taxi service providing subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. and is currently in the research and development phase. Waymo has created a full-scale digital map of Chandler, Arizona, enabling the entire town ready for fully automated way vehicles’ rides.

Resignation of the founders from the Alphabet Inc

The idea behind Alphabet establishment is to make the core business of Google more accountable. 

The founder’s Larry Page and Sergey resigned from their respective positions leaving the position to be filled by Sundar Pichai, the current CEO of Alphabet inc. along with Google.

Wrapping up

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Fox News, owned by the Fox Corporation, is an eminent news outlet started by Rupert Murdoch in the year 1996. It held a unique place among the other American news channels since its launch and amassed 17 million subscribers right away. The New York-headquartered news channel is rated as a #1 for over a decade because of its unparalleled appeal to the conservative audience of America. From 1996 to the early 2000s the news channel continued to grow with a matchless subscriber base in the U.S. The news network majorly provides political commentary and is operated under an umbrella of other Fox media assets. 

Who owns Fox News

In July of 1985, Rupert Murdoch, the Australian- American media mogul,  purchased 50 per cent of Fox Filmed Entertainment under 20th Century Fox. The Murdoch family owns the Fox corporation that deals essentially with the News, Television and Sports broadcasting industries. Fox News is one of the many media assets of this corporation. Murdoch co-founded Fox News with the former Republican media consultant and NBC executive Roger Eugene Ailes whose acumen regarding business and politics later became closely associated with the success of the channel. He was also the chairman and CEO of Fox News.

How does Fox News Operate

Fox broadcasts primarily from studios at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan. It garnered a huge significance worldwide upon providing its services to 86 countries and overseas territories.

How Fox News reaped a huge subscriber base at once

Murdoch broke the old school way of cable operators paying content creators to acquire content by paying the cable operators to move fox news closer to the viewers, this brave step taken by Murdoch has been regarded as one of the game-changer moves in television news history. Thanks to the disruption by Murdoch, Fox News Corp. has hit a jackpot by acquiring a huge viewer base, with millions of viewers relying on Fox news to get their daily piece of what’s happening around.

 Equipped with newsrooms, green mat laced studios, Fox News Corporation records and live transmits News and bulletins from Manhattan. Employees of the organization who are deployed around the world, report various developments and updates, as they happen, 24/7, round the year to the base, to keep the organization broadcasting news to viewers. Newsstands are established by the organization at most of the international airports, railway stations, shopping malls in the United States and various metro cities around the world, moving news closer to the viewers and commuters.

With a promising share in television viewership, fox news corp. has also moved on to starting Radio, called Fox News Radio, to deliver short news and talks by various eminent personalities. Later, this radio was renamed “Fox News Talk”, a satellite-based radio in 2006.

To cope up with the internet revolution, fox news has started its online presence via foxnews.com and foxbusiness.com to share news, latest coverage, columns, radio talks, talks of celebrities and video clips to make sure they are catering to the online viewers and readers community of Fox News Corporation.

The organization has also started ” Fox News Latino” to cater for the Hispanic section for f their viewers. The Latino section contains Spanish feeds along with English ones.

Wrapping up

Although American television has an inclination towards liberalism which presented itself to the general public the intolerance of conservatives towards this bias kept on building. So when Fox News was launched the intolerant conservationists took refuge in FNC that gives “Fair and balanced” coverage. 

While the big media had a stronghold of liberalism, conservatives prevailed in the populist and democratic media where people have different voices and media of expression. While Democrats relied on various news outlets for political news, no one source could match up the trust Republican had in Fox News.

Although this bias in the media led to a distrust of the public, having a huge audience who are inclined towards right-wing aided Fox News in overruling other news channels.

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Founded in 1994, Dreamworks is a private entertainment and film-production company launched by entertainment stalwarts- Steven Spielberg- best known for his movies Jurassic park, Schinder’s list, etc., David Geffan- renowned Producer and business magnet of America, and Jeffrey Katzenberg- one of the famous film producers and media personalities of the US. Started off as an entertainment live-action studio for films, Dreamworks is known to be one of the successful film studios of those times by grossing more than 100 million USD per each movie produced distributed.

In the times when Walt Disney Company- the revolutionary Animated company of 2000s, was winning the box office race by producing artistic animated films of the era, DreamWorks produced a computer-animated film Shrek, which is one of the best grossed feature films of 2001. DreamWorks was renamed as DreamWorks SKG, named after the founding trio- Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffan. The film production company has grown quite popular in Hollywood within no time and produced some of the classic live-action and animated films. 

In their later ventures, the trio brought each of their expertise under one roof. Katzenberg who formerly served as the Chairperson of Walt Disney Studios and known for his direction marvel- Beauty and the Beast- led animation movies under DreamWorks.

David Geffan, known for his music business- the Geffen Records- one of the path-breaking record labels of 1980, tailored music label launched under the names SKG Music and DreamWorks Records . Steven Spielberg, with his passion for film-making and creating masterpieces, continued his journey of live-action film-making with more budget and technical investment. 

DreamWorks Interactive, the Microsoft-funded interactive gaming venture was one of the promising investment projects that DreamWorks signed in collaboration with a technology giant in 1995. During the period between 1994 to 1997, the company went through a roller-coaster of exciting ups and disappointing downs.

Their first film project- The Peacemaker didn’t reach the expected all-hailed success. But in their later stint, they produced some of the blockbusters like Mouse Hunt, Amistad, and Deep Impact, etc.,- the successes that placed DreamWorks back in the game. While the cinema venture was delivering promising results, SKG Records- the subsidiary of DreamWorks music venture, started off with quite a big buzz by bagging prominent awards like Boston Music Awards for their successful and popular record labels.

Who owns DreamWorks

Fast forward to 2005, the founders decided to sell the live-action studio to original Viacom with an agreement of continuing the original production name. A year later, the deal was closed; by then Paramount (the then parent company of original Viacom) planned to license the music label to Sony Music.

Although Paramount retained the distribution rights and production label, they sold the controlling rights of live-action studio to Dune entertainment. After a series of mergers and acquisitions, in the year 2008, DreamWorks ended its deal with Paramount and raised 1.2 billion USD in a deal with Reliance (Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group) for setting up a stand alone production company of its own. 

After a brief period of time, in 2009, Walt Disney Pictures agreed to sign a long-term deal where 30 films produced by DreamWorks films would be released in the banner of Touchstone pictures and Disney would get a 10% of distribution amount. Along with this deal, DreamWorks also took a loan of about 175 million USD from Disney and also got production access slots with Disney.

After cutting ties with Universal studios, DreamWorks again raised funding of 325 million USD from Reliance. Thereafter, in the month of August DreamWorks and Reliance signed a deal worth 825 million USD which is a pact for producing 6 movies per the contractual year. The partnership with Reliance continued until 2012 where the company invested around 200 million USD after DreamWorks’ continued to produce many  projects back to back.

Through this funding, DreamWorks again bounced back and went on to shoot big budget movies with 20th Century Fox as their financial partner. In the same year, they negotiated to extend their deal with Disney for distributing their films in some parts of the world. 

DreamWorks started negotiating with Universal Studios in September 2015- just ahead of the Disney-DreamWorks deal expiry. Disney retained the production and distribution rights of fourteen films and further acquired the copyright of DreamWorks distribution name.

Wrapping Up

At the end of 2015, Speilberg collaborated with Participant media, Entertainment One, and Reliance to launch a brand new content production company. Amblin Partners, the production company made  a deal with Universal studios to distribute the films produced by Amblin Partners for five years. Currently DreamWorks is under the joint-venture agreement of Amblin Partners.

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