Media Pluralism

How well does Colombia do with respect to safeguarding media diversity? Which are the greatest risks that may harm this situation? These ten indicators provide an assessment of the situation.

Media Audience Concentration

HIGH

Media Market Concentration

No data

Regulatory Safeguards: Media Ownership Concentration

high

Cross-media Ownership Concentration

HIGH

Regulatory Safeguards: Cross-media Ownership Concentration

high

Ownership Transparency

MEDIUM

Regulatory Safeguards: Ownership Transparency

high

(Political) Control Over Media Outlets and Distribution Networks

medium

(Political) Control Over Media Funding

No data

Regulatory Safeguards: Net Neutrality

HIGH

Media groups

Concentration throughout the sectors

High cross-media audience concentration, especially in TV and Radio, and high ownership concentration in print and online
media threaten media pluralism with big families owning the mayor news outlets.

Transparency

Guessing Games on who owns what

Company structures are complex: the major media groups are in the hands of few families, but there are several companies in the middle, belonging to members of those families or other companies of familiy members, which makes tracking down original owners hard. There's little official information on those structures and many companies are reluctant to give some on demand.

Regulation

Many regulatory institutions - little regulation.

There are several legal entities on competition and media that are said to monitor media and monopolies according to the constitution, however there is no clear insight on how this is done. Also, the laws on that are very unspecific and most regulation is only based on constitutional values instead of firm laws.

Political Afiliations

Strong ties between politics and media

Many media owners hold or used to hold public offices as mayors, ambassadors, senators etc. or are related to or befriended with important figures of the public sphere, like (ex-)presidents or ministers.