According to ZenithOptimedia’s new report Top Thirty Global Media Owners 2015, Google is now bigger in terms of media revenue than Disney and Comcast combined.
Google’s dominance as the world’s largest media owner has increased, with the gap between it and its nearest competitor widening significantly over the past year. Google is now 136 percent bigger than the second-largest media owner (Disney), up from 115 percent a year earlier. It is also bigger than the second- and third-largest (Comcast) combined.
The list places Google first, Disney second, Comcast third, 21st Century Fox fourth and CBS Corporation fifth. Bertelsmann comes in at number six, followed by Viacom, Time Warner, News Corp. and Facebook, in consecutive order in the top 10.
Also making the list are Discovery (13), Baidu (14), Grupo Globo (17), Fuji Media Holdings (19), CCTV (20) and Mediaset (25). ITV ranked 27th, followed by ProSiebenSat.1 at 28.
The Top Thirty Global Media Owners report is a ranking of the world’s largest media companies by media revenue, as estimated by ZenithOptimedia. ZenithOptimedia defines media revenue as all revenue deriving from businesses that support advertising, to determine which companies are most important for the marketing industry.
“The rapid growth of digital media and emerging ad markets has strengthened the position of media owners such as Google, Facebook, Baidu and Globo, at the expense of traditional media owners in developed markets,” said Jonathan Barnard, ZenithOptimedia’s head of forecasting. “The top digital media owners currently maintain a strong grip on the digital ad market, but they face the constant threat of displacement by disruptive innovators. While some emerging-market media owners face challenges in expanding their businesses in the short term, we expect to see more media owners from emerging markets enter the top 30 over the next few years.”
