Uniformity is comforting. The alternative is challenging. These are billion-dollar properties: they survive based on mass appeal. What's the mass media property that doesn't capitalize in some way on the status quo? What are you really asking for here? A version of Mulan where the heroine dies in a hail of arrows? The Suite Life With Zack And Cody's Meth Habit? Even The Daily Show only works as entertainment because it has mass entertainment to feed off of.

Don't get me wrong, if I were in charge of those companies I would be a fool to try to run them any differently. All I am saying is that whatever the reason (be it deliberation, market forces, or something else entirely) these companies are capable of putting out a consistent message, provided you look at it from a certain perspective.

I suppose you could say I am stretching the meaning of "agenda". Non-deliberate messages, which most of the "pro establishment" stuff probably is, probably doesn't really qualify as agenda now that I think about it.

Sure. I'm just suggesting that this may be a variant of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. Media companies don't drive the consistency of the culture; they simply feed on the enormous latent drive to comforting conformity that's hardwired into our species.

Right, agreed.