Twenty-five years ago, the majority of the U.S. news industry was represented by a variety of about fifty corporations. Today, that number has dropped to about five. Author Ben Bagdikian has followed this trend through a series of books called The Media Monopoly. The latest edition was published in 2004.

This chart was provided by the Media Reform Information Center.

And if there has been any question as to why the depiction of women in both news and entertainment conform to the same predictable standard, then perhaps one of the answers lies in the fact that all the major film studios in Hollywood are merged with respective news and television corporations. It's like one big happy family. Here are the key members.

Time Warner, which includes Warner Brothers Studios and the internet company AOL.

Disney is the distributor of ABC television programs as well as major motion pictures from studios including Touchstone and Miramax.

The news corporation owned by Rupert Murdoch also owns the film studio 20th Century Fox.

Viacom (formerly CBS) owns Paramount Pictures.

Yes, NBC and Universal Studios are happily married.

Bertelsmann is a German corporation. Although I do not know if it is affiliated with any major Hollywood studio, it is one of the top five companies controlling U.S. media.