New York City has been called themedia capital of the world.[1][2] The media organizations based in New York City are internationally influential and include some of the most importantnewspapers, largestpublishing houses, biggestrecord companies, and most prolifictelevision studios in the world. It is a major global center for the book, magazine, music, newspaper, and television industries. A 2019Pew Research Center report found that 12 percent of all U.S. newsroom employees live in New York City, disproportionately higher than the 7 percent of the U.S. working-age population that lives in New York City.[3]
New York is also the largestmedia market in North America (followed byLos Angeles,Chicago, andToronto).[4] Some of the city's media conglomerates includeCNN (CNN Global), theHearst Corporation,NBCUniversal,The New York Times Company, theFox Corporation andNews Corp, theThomson Reuters Corporation, andWarner Bros. Discovery. Seven of the world's top eight globaladvertising agency networks are headquartered in New York.[5] Three of the "Big Four" record labels are also headquartered or co-headquartered in the city. One-third of all Americanindependent films are produced in New York.[6] More than 200 newspapers and 350 consumer magazines have an office in the city[6] and the book-publishing industry employs about 25,000 people.[7]
Two of the three U.S. nationaldaily newspapers with the largestcirculations in the United States are published in New York:The Wall Street Journal; andThe New York Times, nicknamed "the Grey Lady", which has won the mostPulitzer Prizes forjournalism and is considered the U.S. media's "newspaper of record".[8] Majortabloid newspapers in the city include theNew York Daily News, which was founded in 1919 byJoseph Medill Patterson,[9] and theNew York Post, founded in 1801 byAlexander Hamilton.[10]Newsday, aLong Island newspaper, is also widely circulated in the city. The city also has a major ethnic press, with 270 newspapers and magazines published in more than 40 languages.[11]El Diario La Prensa is New York's largest Spanish-language daily and the oldest in the nation.[12]The New York Amsterdam News, published in Harlem, is a prominent African-American newspaper.The Village Voice was the largestalternative newspaper until it ceased publishing in 2018.
The television industry developed in New York and is a significant employer in the city's economy. The four major American broadcast networks,ABC,CBS,Fox, andNBC, are all headquartered in New York. Many cable channels are based in the city as well, including CNN,MSNBC,MTV,Fox News,HBO, andComedy Central. In 2005 there were more than 100 television shows taped in New York City.[13]
New York is also a major center for non-commercial media. The oldestpublic-accesscable television channel in the United States is theManhattan Neighborhood Network, founded in 1971.[14]WNET is the city's major public television station and a primary provider of national Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) programming.WNYC, a public radio station owned by the city until 1997, has the largest public radio audience in the United States.[15] The City of New York operates a public broadcast service,NYC Media, that produces several original New York Emmy Award–winning shows covering music and culture in city neighborhoods, as well as citygovernment-access television (GATV).
New York City is home to a number of majoronline media companies, includingYahoo! and its operations under theAOL brand, along with news and entertainment companies likeBuzzFeed andVICE Media.[16]
The book publishing industry in the United States is based in New York. Publishing houses in the city range from industry giants such asPenguin Group (USA),HarperCollins,Random House,Scholastic,Simon & Schuster, andMacmillan to small niche houses likeMelville House Publishing andLee & Low Books. Three courses on publishing, theColumbia Publishing Course, the NYU Summer Publishing Institute, and the CUNY Publishing Certificate Program, train the next generation of editors.[17] New York has also been the setting for countless works of literature, many of them produced by the city's large population of writers (which have includedPaul Auster,Don DeLillo,Bret Easton Ellis,Jonathan Safran Foer,Jonathan Franzen,Jhumpa Lahiri,Jonathan Lethem,John O'Hara,Dorothy Parker,Thomas Pynchon,Susan Sontag and many others). The New York City metro area, home to the largest number of Jews and Italians outsideIsrael andItaly, respectively, has also been a flourishing scene for bothJewish American literature and Italian-American literature.
New York is also home toPEN America, the largest of the 141 centers ofPEN International, the world's oldesthuman rights organization and the oldest international literary organization. PEN America plays an important role in New York's literary community and is active in defending free speech, the promotion of literature, and the fostering of international literary fellowship. AuthorJennifer Egan is its current president.
Some of the most important literary journals in the United States are in New York. These includeThe Paris Review,The New York Review of Books,n+1, andNew York Quarterly. Other New York literary publications includeCircumference,Open City,The Manhattan Review,The Coffin Factory,Fence, andTelos. New York is also home to the US offices ofGranta.
New York is a prominent location for the Americanentertainment industry, with manyfilms, television series, books, and other media being set there.[18] As of 2012[update], New York City was the second largest center forfilmmaking andtelevision production in the United States, producing about 200feature films annually, employing 130,000 individuals; the filmed entertainment industry has been growing in New York, contributing nearly US$9 billion to the New York City economy alone as of 2015,[19] and by volume, New York is the world leader inindependent film production[20] – one-third of all American independent films are produced in New York City.[21] The Association of Independent Commercial Producers is also based in New York.[22] In the first five months of 2014 alone,location filming fortelevision pilots in New York City exceeded the record production levels for all of 2013,[23] with New York surpassing Los Angeles as the top North American city for the same distinction during the 2013/2014 cycle.[24] International film makers are featured prominently in New York City as well.
In the earliest days of the American film industry, New York was the epicenter of filmmaking. However, the drier weather of Hollywood and tax incentives offered at the time by filming in Los Angeles made California a better choice for film production throughout much of the 20th century. TheKaufman Astoria Studios film studio, built during thesilent film era, was used by theMarx Brothers andW.C. Fields, and has expanded its footprint inQueens. It has also been used forThe Cosby Show,Sesame Street and the films ofWoody Allen. The recently constructedSteiner Studios is a 15-acre (61,000 m2) modern movie studio complex in a former shipyard whereThe Producers andThe Inside Man, aSpike Lee movie, were filmed.
New York was also important within the animation industry, and remains so to an extent. Until 1938, it served as the home of Fleischer Studios (who produced thePopeye,Betty Boop, andColor Classics shorts forParamount Pictures) as well as the Van Beuren Studios (who produced animated shorts forRKO Radio Pictures) until 1937. New York was later the home for Famous Studios (who replaced Fleischer Studios and continued the production of Popeye shorts for Paramount) from 1943 to the 1960s. Its current position in the animation world is as an alternative to Los Angeles (where most U.S. animation is produced. The city now houses several schools and school programs concerning animation, and is a source of work for animators working for any medium, from advertising to film.
Silvercup Studios has expanded inLong Island City, Queens with numerous soundstages, production and studio support space, offices for media and entertainment companies, stores, 1,000 apartments inhigh-rise towers, a catering hall and a cultural institution, built at the edge of theEast River in Queens, overlookingManhattan, and maintaining its status as the largest production house on theU.S. East Coast. Steiner Studios inBrooklyn still has the largest individual soundstage, however.Miramax Films, aBig Ten film studio, was the largest motion picture distribution and production company headquartered in the city until it moved toBurbank, California in January 2010. Many smaller independent producers and distributors are located in New York.
New York City has a long history inAmericanmagazine publishing based inNew York City.
In the 1930s, New York-basedRCA was the nation's largest manufacturer ofphonographs. In the late 19th and early 20th century, most sheet music in the United States—especially the popular songs of the day, many now standards—was printed atTin Pan Alley, so called because the constant sound of new songs being tried out on pianos in the publishing houses was said to sound like a tin pan. By the early 1960s the radio and musical stars of the Golden Age ofBroadway gave way to theBrill Building's "Brill Sound".
Salsa music, which got its start in New York City in the mid-1960s, was popularized by the New York record labelFania Records, which developed a highly polished "Fania sound" that came to be synonymous with salsa.
In the 1980s and 1990s,hip hop labels includingDef Jam,Roc-A-Fella andBad Boy Records were founded in New York, creating what is known asEast Coast hip hop. These labels continue to be among the largest hip-hop labels in the world. Other influential New York-based hip hop labels, past and present, includeCold Chillin' Records,Jive Records,Loud Records,Rawkus Records andTommy Boy Records.
Two of the"Big Four" music labels are headquartered in the city:Sony Music Entertainment andWarner Music Group. The world headquarters ofMTV is also in New York.
Many major music magazines are headquartered in the city as well, includingBlender Magazine,Punk Magazine,Spin andRolling Stone.[25]
New York City is home to 4 of the 10 largest papers in the United States. These includeThe New York Times (circulation 571,500), theNew York Post (circulation 414,254),[26] and theDaily News (circulation 227,352).The Wall Street Journal (circulation 2.2 million),[27] published in New York City, is a national-scope business newspaper and the first or second most-read newspaper in the nation, depending on measurement method.[citation needed]
El Diario La Prensa (circulation 265,000) is New York's largest Spanish-language daily and the oldest in the nation.[28] There are also several borough-specific newspapers, such asThe Brooklyn Daily Eagle andThe Staten Island Advance.Free daily newspapers mainly distributed to commuters includeamNewYork,Hoy andMetro New York. In addition to the print newspapers,BKLYNER is the leading daily digital news publication reporting on local news and events in Brooklyn.
The city's ethnic press is large and diverse. Major ethnic publications include the Roman Catholic diocesan paper for Brooklyn-Queens,The Tablet andJewish-American newspapersThe Jewish Daily Forward (פֿאָרװערטס;Forverts, published inYiddish andEnglish) (founded in 1897), andAfrican-American newspapers, including the long-time newspaperThe New York Amsterdam News (founded in 1909) andBrooklyn-basedOur Time Press.The Epoch Times, an international newspaper published by theFalun Gong, has English andChinese editions in New York. There are seven dailies published inChinese and four inSpanish. Multiple daily papers are published inItalian,Greek,Polish, andKorean, and other weekly newspapers serve dozens of different ethnic communities, with ten separate newspapers focusing on the African-American community alone.[29] Many nationally distributed ethnic newspapers are based in Astoria, Chinatown or Brooklyn. Over 60 ethnic groups, writing in 42 languages, publishing over 200 non-English language magazines and newspapers in New York City, including newspapers in 95 non-English languages and local radio broadcasts in over 30 languages.[30]
Ethnic variation is not the only measure of the diversity of New York City's newspapers, with editorial opinions running from left-leaning at alternative papers like theVillage Voice (before its closure in 2018),[31] to conservative at theNew York Post.New York Observer covers politics and the city's rich and powerful with unusual depth. The tradition of afree press owes much toJohn Peter Zenger, a New York publisher who was acquitted in his 1735 landmark court case, setting the precedent that truth was a legitimate defense against accusations oflibel.
Major newspapers emphasizing coverage of the New York metropolitan region outside the city includeNewsday, which covers primarily Long Island but also New York City, (especiallyBrooklyn andQueens),The Journal News, which covers Westchester County, to the north along theHudson River andThe Bergen Record andThe Star-Ledger, ofNewark which cover northernNew Jersey across theNew York Bay and Hudson River to the west.
New York City's digital companies, sometimes described as "Silicon Alley", include both software companies and companies known primarily as content producers. Among the former areTumblr (now owned byAutomattic),Foursquare, andAOL. Among the latter areG/O Media,BuzzFeed (which, since 2020, ownsHuffPost) andWeblogs, Inc., which is currently part ofYahoo. The satirical newspaperThe Onion (online-only from 2013 to 2024) was based in New York from 2000 to 2012.
Asterisk (*) indicates a non-commercial (public radio/campus/educational) broadcast.
([RDS]) — indicates a supported by theRadio Data System.
New York City is the home of the three traditional major Americantelevision networks,ABC,CBS andNBC, as well as Spanish-language networksUnivision and Telemundo. They each have local broadcast owned and operated stations which serve as the flagship stations of their networks.
The NBC affiliate is simulcast on Puerto Rico onchannel 2.3.[33]The CW affiliateWPIX is asuperstation carried by cable providers inCanada and theLesser Antilles.
It is also the headquarters of several largest cable television channels, includingMTV,Fox News,HBO, andComedy Central.Silvercup Studios, located inQueens was the production facility for the popular television showsSex and the City andThe Sopranos. MTV and later CBS broadcast programming live from a sound stage overlookingTimes Square,[34] several blocks away from TheEd Sullivan Theater, the theater housing theLate Show with Stephen Colbert.Saturday Night Live is broadcast from NBC's studios at 30Rockefeller Center, whereThe Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,Late Night with Seth Meyers,NBC Nightly News andThe Today Show is also taped. African American-aimedBET is headquartered on 57th Street.The Colbert Report is produced byComedy Central on54th Street, andThe Daily Show, also produced by Comedy Central, is produced just a few blocks over on 11th avenue and West 53rd street. Glenn Beck's The Blaze TV has a studio in Manhattan. Over a thousand people are involved with producing the variousLaw & Order television series. In 2005 there were more than 100 new and returning television shows taped in New York City, according to the Mayor's Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting.
WNET, New York's largest public television station, is a primary national provider ofPBS programming. The oldestpublic-access television network in the United States is theManhattan Neighborhood Network, well known for its eclecticlocal origination programming that ranges from a jazz hour to discussion of labor issues to foreign-language and religious programming. There are eight other Public-access television channels in New York, including Brooklyn Community Access Television (BCAT). As part of use of local rights-of-way, the cable operators in New York have grantedPublic, educational, and government access (PEG) organizations channels for programming. They also carry theNew York State legislative channel available on cable packages with sufficient bandwidth.
City authorities awarded the firstcable television territorial franchises in Manhattan and parts of The Bronx, and to the other boroughs in 1983.[35] As of 2024, the franchises are held byAltice,Charter andVerizon.
Charter's predecessorTime Warner Cable launched news channelNY1 in 1992. The NY1 is known for its beat coverage of city neighborhoods, and its coverage ofCity Hall and state politics is closely watched by political insiders.
For years, several soap operas were filmed in the New York City area, includingAnother World,As the World Turns,Guiding Light,All My Children andOne Life to Live. As of 2012, there are no New York soap operas left on the air.
Asterisk (*) indicates channel is a networkowned-and-operated station. Two asterisks (**) indicates channel is a networkflagship station.
Because of its sheer size and cultural influence, New York City has been the subject of many different, and often contradictory, portrayals in mass media. From the sophisticated and worldly metropolis seen in manyWoody Allen films, to the hellish and chaotic urban jungle depicted in such movies asMartin Scorsese'sTaxi Driver (1976), New York has served as the backdrop for and bastion of virtually every conceivable viewpoint on big city life.
In the early years of film New York City was characterized as urbane and sophisticated. By the city's crisis period in the 1970s, however, films likeMidnight Cowboy (1969),The French Connection (1971), andDeath Wish (1974) showed New York as full of chaos and violence. With the city's renaissance in the 1990s came new portrayals on television;Seinfeld,Friends, andSex and the City showed life in the city to be glamorous and interesting. Nonetheless, a disproportionate number of crime dramas, such asLaw & Order and theSpider-Man film series, continue to use the city as their setting despite New York's status as the safest large city in the United States after plummeting crime rates over many years.[36]
An essay appearing in the Arts section ofThe New York Times in April 2006 quoted several filmmakers, includingSidney Lumet andPaul Mazursky, describing how modern cinema shows the city as far more "teeming, terrifying, exhilarating, [and] unforgiving" than contemporary New York actually is, and the consequential challenge this poses for filmmakers.[37] The article quotesRobert Greenhut,Woody Allen's producer, as saying that despite the increased sanitization of modern New York, "New Yorkers' personalities are different to Chicago. There's a certain kind of vibrancy and tone that you can't get elsewhere. The labor pool is more interesting than elsewhere — the salesgirl with one line, or the cop. That's who directors are looking for."
Never before has any TV station in the entertainment and news media capital of the world carried what organizer boast is the world's largest Pride parade live on TV.
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