Media mergers likely to be more frequent as efficiencies rule the day

[Commentary] Enough has happened since AOL announced its ill-fated merger with Time Warner that the original strategy based on business "synergies" and technological "convergence" may be more valid today than it was a decade ago. If so, we could be at the start of radical consolidation in the media industry.

I'm not just talking about mergers between Web portals and popular Web sites. Think newspapers and TV networks, magazines and cable networks, wire services and social networks, movie studios and telephone networks. The process will take at least another decade and will involve lots of trial and error and squandered fortunes. By the time it's over, the landscape is likely to be dominated by a handful of global "brands" selling news, entertainment and community engagement, using video, audio and text, delivered through whatever devices customers desire. Several factors drive this consolidation, including the AOL-HuffPost deal. The most obvious is that there are tremendous economies of scale in the media business.