Time Warner is the world’s largest media owner, generating almost twice the revenue than its nearest rival News Corp in 2005 and making $30bn which makes up 13 per cent of the total worldwide media spend, a new report by media agency ZenithOptimedia has said.
Time Warner, owners of Home Box Office (HBO), Time magazine, Sports Illustrated and Warner Brothers film studio topped the list with $30bn media revenue generated. It was among five other US media owners that topped the list. Some companies on the list are entirely media-focused while others are corporate giants for which media forms only a small part of their overall turnover.
In all, 16 of the top 30 media owners are from the US. The other countries with media owners in the top 30 are Japan (with four representatives), France and the UK (with three each), Germany (two) and Italy and Mexico (one each). Non-American companies on the top 30 list include Axel Springer, Bertelsmann, BSkyB, ITV plc., Fuji TV and Televisa.
The top 30 media owners in the report generated a total of $215bn in media revenue. Two online companies, Google and Yahoo made it into the top 30, ranked number 13 and 15 with revenues of $6bn and $5.2bn respectively.
The ranking forms part of a new report from ZenithOptimedia called the Top Thirty Global Media Owners. The report provides an overview of each media owner’s operations and lists the media properties they own, along with key personnel, media shareholdings, and financial data.
The ranking is based on revenues for 2005, or the nearest equivalent for companies whose financial years are different from calendar years. Some companies’ media revenues are therefore from the financial years ending in March 2006 or June 2006.
News Corp, owners of US news channel Fox, newspapers the Sun and the Times and online portal MySpace, ranked number two behind Time Warner, generating $17bn. Third was General Electric generating £14.6bn, fourth CBS Corporation with $13.4bn , fifth Walt Disney Company with $13.2bn. Each of the top five ranked owners has at least a half share in a US television network, but their holdings vary in nature and international extent.
