Google: the Largest Media Company in the World

According to the latest ranking of the 30 biggest media in the world, published by the ZenithOptimedia communication agency, Google outperforms traditional media groups.

In order to determine the position in the list, it was considered all the income in a tax year, including not only those received through advertising, but those collected through the sell of copies in the case of newspapers and magazines or subscriptions to pay-TV operators.

In this calculation, Google had revenues of 37,900 million, 39% more than his nearest rival in the rankings, DirecTV, which earned 27.200 million.

In third place came News Corporation, the second largest media conglomerate owned by the controversial tycoon Rupert Murdoch, with 26.400 million dollars.

Other leading media companies according to the list are Walt Disney Company, 21st Century Fox, Comcast, Time Warner, Cox Enterprises, BSkyB, CBS Bertelsmann and CBS Corporation a, which are the top ten of the rankings. Following are Viacom, Advance Publications, Vivendi, Clear Channel Communications, Asahi Shimbun Company, Gannett, Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings, Yahoo! and Globo.

The classification concludes with Fuji Media Holdings, Discovery Communications, CCTV, Facebook, Axel Springer, Hearst Corporation, Mediaset, Baidu, Microsoft and JCDecaux.

Here it is noteworthy that some of the Internet giants have begun to take the place of traditional media institutions (1).

And, for the first time appear in this list, two Chinese companies: CCTV (2) and Baidu (3) and the Brazilian Globo, which are the only ones from markets in emerging economies.

The inclusion of Baidu means that there are currently five media owners dedicated exclusively to a medium like the Internet: Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Baidu and Microsoft-one more than the four last year.

These five account for 67% of all the investement in global publicity in Internet confirms how the market power of Internet advertising is currently owned by intermediaries (companies that connect consumers with the content they are looking for, or consumers among themselves) rather than the producers of content.

However, despite the rapid growth of intermediaries, content producers continue to generate the most revenue.

Each of these data brings to light as never before, in this age of monopolies, they are the ones defining public agenda, as an expression of the concentration of the political power in the world.

Faced with this reality, citizens have recently organized demonstrations in cities across Canada, the U.S., Australia and the United Kingdom. In these countries the protesters have gathered near the offices of the mainstream media.

For example, in the UK a crowd gathered outside the headquarters of the BBC, many of them wearing the famous GuyFawkes masks popularized by Anonymous.

Translated by Daysi Olano
Revised by ESTI