Lecture Response: Horizontal and vertical conglomeration

Conglomeration is when one large company owns a great amount of smaller companies. Horizontal conglomeration is where one company owns all of one step in a process. An example is if a large company owns all of the record labels in the business, and anyone looking to get a record label has to go through them. Vertical conglomeration is where a single company owns one of each step in a process. This is beneficial for the company because they can complete the process with no cost, an example being that a company owns one recording station, one talent, one record company, one distribution company and one record store.

I never would have been aware of this until this lecture. I think that this could be troublesome for the economy when one company doesn't have to pay to complete a process that earns them money.