Google Strengthens Its Position As World's Largest Media Owner

EMBARGOED: 0.01 GMT/1.01 CET 11 May 2015

Google strengthens its position as world’s largest media owner, Facebook is the fastest-growing media owner in ZenithOptimedia’s global top 30

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. According to ZenithOptimedia’s new report Top Thirty Global Media Owners 2015, Google is now 136% bigger than the second-largest media owner (Disney), up from 115% a year earlier. It is also bigger than the second-largest and third-largest (Comcast) combined.

The Top Thirty Global Media Owners report is a unique ranking of the world’s largest media companies by media revenue, as estimated by ZenithOptimedia. The report was launched in 2007 and was last published by ZenithOptimedia in 2014. ZenithOptimedia defines media revenue as all revenue deriving from businesses that support advertising, to determine which companies are most important for the marketing industry.*

Google has benefited from the rising sales of smartphones and tablets, making its central search function available to consumers on the move - especially useful for shoppers looking for price comparison - and allowed consumers to view content at times and places most convenient for them. This has created new opportunities to target them with display ads, another important component of Google’s business. But the main beneficiary of the transition to mobile has been Facebook, which is the fastest growing of our top 30 media owners. Facebook’s media revenues grew 63% over the past year. Facebook has actively embraced mobile technology in order to encourage its users to visit it regularly and frequently throughout the day, while designing its ads to blend seamlessly into the content feed. Facebook is the 10th-largest media owner in our ranking.

The next-fastest growing company is Baidu – China’s equivalent of Google – which grew by 43% over the year. Baidu’s growth has been driven by the rapid development of China’s ad market, as well as improvements in search technology, and it is now the world’s 14th-largest media owner, ahead of digital rivals Yahoo! (18th) and Microsoft (21st).

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The third-fastest growing company is Grupo Globo, Brazil’s principal media owner, whose media revenues grew 15% year on year. Like Baidu, Globo has benefited from its presence in a fast-growing emerging ad market, but Brazil’s recent economic difficulties are likely to limit further growth in the short term.

There is only one other media owner in our top 30 that is based in an emerging market and that is CCTV: China’s national state television company. CCTV accounts for about a quarter of China’s television ad market - the third-largest in the world - and has more than tripled in size over the past decade. Chinese television is now facing stiff competition for ad budgets from online video and digital media in general, and CCTV too is likely to find it tough to increase its revenues from its core business.

There are five purely digital media owners in our global top 30 – Google, Facebook, Baidu, Yahoo! and Microsoft. Between them they generated US$71bn in media revenue, which represents 68% of all global digital adspend, up from 67% in our previous report. Power in the digital advertising market is concentrated in the hands of a few large platforms, and is becoming even more concentrated.

“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.”

* Definition of media revenues ZenithOptimedia defines media revenue as all revenues deriving from businesses that support advertising – television broadcasting, newspaper publishing, internet search, social media, and so on. This includes not only advertising revenues but also other revenues generated by these businesses, such as circulation revenues for newspapers or magazines. This provides a clear picture of the size and negotiating power of the biggest global media owners that advertisers and agencies have to deal with. The report covers the financial year 2013, which is the latest year for which we have consistent

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revenue figures from all of the publicly listed companies.

In a change from previous editions, we have tightened the definition of media revenues to exclude simple redistribution of third-party content. This means that for pay-TV providers, we only include revenues from content in which they sell advertising – the part of their business that is relevant for marketing purposes. The ranking for this year’s edition therefore rather different from those in previous editions.

Ranking of Top 30 Global Media Owners 2015 Rank Media owner Rank Media owner 1 Google 16 Asahi Shimbun Company 2 Walt Disney Company 17 Grupo Globo 3 Comcast 18 Yahoo! 4 21st Century Fox 19 Fuji Media Holdings 5 CBS Corporation 20 CCTV 6 Bertelsmann 21 Microsoft 7 Viacom 22 Hearst Corporation 8 Time Warner 23 JC Decaux 9 News Corp 24 Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings 10 Facebook 25 Mediaset 11 Advance Publications 26 Axel Springer 12 iHeartMedia 27 ITV plc 13 Discovery 28 ProSiebenSat.1 14 Baidu 29 NTV 15 Gannett 30 Sanoma

For further information, please contact:

Jonathan Barnard Tim Collison Head of Forecasting Global Communications Director Tel: +44 20 7961 1192 Tel: +44 20 7961 1126 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

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About ZenithOptimedia ZenithOptimedia - www.zenithoptimedia.com - is a leading global media services network with over 7,500 people working in 262 offices across 74 countries. We are part of Publicis Groupe, the world’s third largest communications group, and the world’s second largest media agency group. As the first agency to apply a rigorous and objective approach to improving the effectiveness of marketing spend, ZenithOptimedia delivers to clients the best possible return on their communications investment. This philosophy is supported by a unique approach to strategy development and implementation across the full spectrum of paid, owned and earned contact points – the Live ROI planning process. The ZenithOptimedia Group of companies equips our clients with a full range of integrated skills across communications planning, value optimisation, performance media and content creation. Our key clients include Aviva, Clarins, Kering, Lactalis, L’Oréal, LVMH, Nestlé, Oracle, Reckitt Benckiser, Richemont Groupe, SCA, Sanofi, Toyota and 21st Century Fox.

About the Top Thirty Global Media Owners ZenithOptimedia’s Top Thirty Global Media Owners provides a comprehensive ranking of the Top 30 media companies worldwide as defined in ZenithOptimedia’s unique ranking. Each entry describes the core business and its recent developments; lists media properties; and provides financial information, including total revenue, media revenue and a breakdown of media revenue by division where available.

Top Thirty Global Media Owners may be ordered in hard or soft copy from www.zenithoptimedia.com for £295.

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