Mexico’s Media Concentration and Ownership in Global Comparison
Eli Noam Professor of Finance and Economics Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility Director, Columbia Institute for Tele-Information Columbia University Business School
April 2014
Speaker’s Draft – Preliminary
A. Introduction
In the information age, the diversity, openness, competitiveness, pluralism, and innovativeness of the means of communication are central to societies and economies. Therefore, the market structures of media industries is a central question.
The media business is big business. Content media account for a combined $676 billion, about 1% of the world's GDP. Platform media accounted for $1.6 trillion, 2.3% of world GDP. Add media devices and media retailing, and the total rises to $3.6 trillion, or 5.9% of world GDP. Of discretionary spending, (i.e., excluding food, housing, medical, education, transportation to work), the media spending (including telecom connectivity), accounts for almost 20%. It is even higher in terms of discretionary time – beyond the time spent for work, sleep, and meals. In the US, average annual media consumption per person, as listed by the U.S. Census Bureau, has been measured to be an astonishing 3,545 hours per year for 2005-2009, not including time for e- mail and telephone calls, or 9.7 per day. This number implies that media consumption-- including background music, multi-tasking, and multi-media, but not including email and phone time, -- would occupy or overlap with 60% of all non-sleep time, including work time. Thus, the control over such large components of wallet and time are important just as a business matter, even beyond the role of media for politics, culture, and society.
Our study identifies as one of the major issues in global media concentration the concentration of media in the emerging countries. Mexico is at the front line of this issue. But for most media intellectuals around the world arguing in favor of media pluralism, the focus of attention is on advanced world media moguls such as Rupert Murdoch, Silvio Berlusconi, or the Hollywood film majors. These are indeed problems. But usually overlooked are the dominant media companies in the emerging and developing countries where most of the world’s people live. My contribution to you today will be to provide some global numbers, which will show how Mexico performs relative to the rest of the world.
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It is, of course, useful to look at the data for a single country. But it is also useful to look at the rest of the world. Because if we can identify common trends we can distinguish between fundamental drivers of change and country-specific situations. It’s hard to deal with fundamental forces. But for country-specific variations policy intervention may make a difference.
Our work covers 30 countries. 80% of world by population, and 80% by GDP. The study involved 70 researchers around the world, covering 30 countries, 13 media industries1, over a period of 10-25 years. They covered thousands of companies. What we at Columbia University added was the common methodology and the overarching data analysis.
B. Who are the largest owners of media in the world?
The world’s largest media owners are listed in Table 1. Carlos Slim is the single largest individual owner, trailing only large governments (China, Japan, and Germany) and several large institutional owners (Several major mutual and hedge funds managed by State Street, Vanguard, etc.).
Table 1: Top Media Owners Worldwide (as of Sept. 2013) Owner or Asset Manager Value of Media Holdings ($ billions) Government of China 317.2 Government of Japan 67.2 State Street (US) 64.8 Vanguard (US) 63.8 Fidelity (US) 46.5 Capital Group (US) 35.2 Government of Germany 29.9 Carlos Slim (Telmex, America Movil, Carso, Mexico) 29.2 Larry Page (Google, US) 26.7 Government of France 26.4 T. Rowe Price Assoc. (US) 26.1
1 We investigated 13 Media Industries: Newspapers; Magazines; Books; Radio; Broadcast TV; Video channels; Wireline telecom; Mobile telecom; Internet service providers; Film; Search engines; Online newspapers. 2
Sergey Brin (Google, US) 26.0 Government of Russia 25.4 BlackRock (US) 24.3 Cox family (Chambers, Kennedy, Parry- Sheden, Anthony) (Cox Communications (US) 24.0 Michael Bloomberg (Bloomberg LP, US) 24.0 David Thompson family (Thompson Reuters, Canada) 20.3 Marinho family (Globo, Brazil) 20.0 Dodge & Cox (US) 20.0 Government of India 19.8 Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook, US) 19.0 Massachusetts Finance (US) 18.7 Brian Roberts family (Comcast, US) 18.5 JP Morgan Chase (US) 17.9 Newhouse family (Advance Publications, US) 17.1 Government of Norway 16.2 Wellington Management (US) 14.0 Government of the UK 13.9 Janus Group (US) 13.8 Goldman Sachs (US) 12.3 Government of Taiwan 12.1 Sawiris Family (Orascom, Egypt) 12.0 Murdoch family (News Corp./21st Century Fox, US) 11.6 Government of South Africa 11.6
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C. Who is the largest media organization in the world? a. By Revenues Graph 1: Top 10 Content Media Organizations by Revenue
35000.000 33076.000
30000.000 25872.000
25000.000 22770.000
20000.000 15,537 15000.000 12,804 11,702 9,737 10000.000 8,148 7,933 6,990
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b. News Attention Time
A second way is to rank media companies is by news attention time.
Table 2: TOP NEWS MEDIA COMPANIES BY ATTENTION SHARE OF WORLD POPULATION, 2004/05 AND 2009-2012 (> 0.1% SHARE, OR #1 IN THEIR COUNTRY) Attention Country of Entity/Company Share (2009- Origin 2012) - World GOV'T OF CHINA 18.96% China CCTV 7.28% China
SHANGHAI MEDIA GROUP 2.33% China
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HUNAN MEDIA GROUP 1.24% China XINHUA 1.12% China PEOPLE'S DAILY 0.73% China CHINA NATIONAL RADIO 0.24% China TRENDS MEDIA GROUP 0.17% China PRASAR BHARATI (PUBLIC) 11.82% India GOV'T OF RUSSIA 1.13% Russia GAZPROM MEDIA 0.54% Russia CHANNEL ONE 0.33% Russia VGTRK 0.27% Russia GOV'T OF EGYPT 1.12% Egypt ERTU 0.87% Egypt AL AHRAM 0.09% Egypt AL AKHBAR 0.09% Egypt AL GOMHOURIA 0.06% Egypt NILE TV NETWORK 0.01% Egypt GLOBO GROUP 1.09% Brazil MURDOCH GROUP 0.95% US 21ST CENTURY FOX 0.76% US NEWS CORP. 0.19% US BCCL 0.93% India GRUPO TELEVISA 0.77% Mexico ZEE ENTERTAINMENT 0.68% India DISNEY 0.62% US COMCAST 0.56% US REDSTONE 0.49% US CBS 0.32% US VIACOM 0.17% US FININVEST 0.40% Italy DOGAN GROUP 0.38% Turkey RAI (public) 0.35% Italy TV AZTECA 0.34% Mexico CTC MEDIA 0.33% Russia NHK (public) 0.33% Japan
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BERTELSMANN 0.32% Germany
The government of China, through its several media organizations, accesses a truly vast share of global news attention. Almost 19% of global news attention. Even if we unbundle China’s news organization, CCTV alone would still command 7.28% of the global news attention and be the second largest news media company in the world. The explanations for these high shares are simple: a huge population (1.3 billion) and state control over most news media outside several online portals and print magazines.
The largest private media firm, by attention time, is Globo in Brazil, with 1.09% for the entire world. Brazil, too, has a large population (192 million) and its media is dominated by Globo. Rupert Murdoch’s two companies combined are the second largest privately owned news providers, by attention, and the largest US-headquartered news firm (0.95% for the entire globe).
Mexico’s Televisa is #8 worldwide, and #4 worldwide among private companies. It is larger in news attention than any US company except for Murdoch. It is larger than any European media firm.
c. Market Power
A 3rd Approach is to ask: who is the largest media company by market power? Who is, in an antitrust sense, the most powerful company in the world? It is Google. By revenues, several companies are well ahead of it. But it holds high market shares in its industry in many. And its overall index has been growing enormously. The runners up are the major media firms News Corp, Time Warner, Disney, Vivendi, Bertelsmann. And the major European telecom companies Telephonica, Orange, Vodafone.
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Graph 2: Companies with Highest Power Index 6000
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Graph 3: Countries’ Pooled Overall Sector C4 – All Media Pooled C4 - All Media
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D. Global Concentration Levels
What are the levels of media concentration? The world average is a very high 3,241 and up from 3,134 in 2004/05. The arithmetic average, which reduces the weight of large (by GDP or population) countries such as the US, China, and India, is 3,904. In 2013, the five countries with the highest average media industry HHIs were China (9,840), South Africa (6,242), Turkey (5,990), Egypt (5,544), and Mexico (5,042). On average, the pooled C4 (i.e. the top 4 companies in the overall combined market (13 industries) for the world is 56.6% (up from 52.3% in 2004), which means that on average, four companies control over one half of each country’s 13 national media industries, combined. This is an astonishingly high percentage and it is based on the large size of platform media. The share of the top firm in each country’s national media market, as measured by the pooled C1 ratio, is a huge 42.7% for platforms, which is 25 points higher than for content media, and 20 points higher than for news media, as measured by revenue. Without China, the average pooled C1 is 29.9%.
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E. Are the world’s media becoming more concentrated?
Has this concentration been declining or rising still further? For content media, average national HHI industry concentration rose by an annual rate of 3.7% per year, a fairly strong rate. That increase was mostly due to search engines. If we exclude the Internet sector, content concentration rose by a still strong 2% per year. The top companies increased their collective market shares, with C1 and C4 rising by 2.9% per year, and on average in an industry, by 2.3% for the top firm, and by 1.2% for the top four. The number of voices, on average, rose 1.25% per year.
However, for platform media, average weighted industry HHI concentration declined by -0.3% per year worldwide. (On the basis of arithmetic averaging, it fell more strongly, by -2.4%.) The dominance of the top firm (pooled C1) in a platform industry declined by 0.3% per year, while the share of the top four (pooled C4) rose by 0.9%. This suggests a shift from near-monopoly to oligopoly.
Average weighted national news media HHI industry concentration declined by -0.2% per year, based on attention time.
In conclusion: average concentration for content media rose by an annual 3.1%, while it declined by an annual -0.3% for platforms. The picture is more positive in an arithmetic averaging, i.e., for the average country. HHI concentration for platform media declined by -2.4%. For content media they rose by 0.3%. On average (arithmetic), the top single platform company in a country lost 1 point of market share each year, while the combined share of the top 4 firms stayed flat. For content media, the top firm gained 0.3 points per year, the top 4 firms gained 0.2, and the HHI rose by about 9 points.
For Mexico, the share of the top 4 firms (C4 index) declined by 1.3% for content media, and stayed stable for platforms. The C4 was 86% for content, and 98% for platforms.
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Graph 4: Media Industry HHI Concentrations and their Trends
F. What are media industries with particularly high– and low – concentrations? What are the explanations?
Our finding is that average industry concentration is a function of capital intensity.
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Graph 5: Media Concentration and Capital Intensity 10000
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Industry HHI ISP Linear (HHI) BroadcastWireless TV 3000 Radio NewspapersVideo Channels 2000 Magazines Film Books 1000
0 00.511.522.53 Ratio of Avg Total Assets to Avg Total Revenue
The more capital intense an industry, the higher fixed costs, lower variable cost, and hence the higher economies of scale are. This, in turn, favors large firms and thus industry concentration. The consequence is that if media become more capital-intensive in the future, their industry concentration will rise. The search engine industry is the most concentrated (7,648). It also experiences the highest increase in concentration (5.6%) during the observed period. In comparison, the worldwide average HHI of the wireline industry, characterized by former or current public telecom monopolies, is the second most concentrated, but has been decreasing by 3% per annum. At the lower end of concentration are the print media industries. Surprisingly, the film industry has the second lowest average HHI of all media industries, due to the absence of a single dominating firm. It is an oligopoly of 6 firms, each with about 10-15%. That industry, however, is unusual insofar as the same six firms dominate in almost all countries where they are free to operate. Worldwide, of the 13 industries, the top 6 firms hold 76.6%. The Film industry’s Worldwide HHI is second only to Search Engines.
So what are some implications for trends in media concentration? We have established that media concentration is affected by the capital intensity of the medium. When we look at media trends, we see a move towards online-based media. These media are capital intensive. They have high fixed costs, low marginal costs, and they are more global and national rather than local and regional of traditional media. This then suggests that the trend of media worldwide will be one of greater concentration.
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G. Does the transition to internet-based media reduce concentration?
Old and New Media - Average Concentration by Region
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Traditional Media 20th Century Media Internet Media
The ISP market is highly concentrated, worldwide, with the arithmetic average HHI standing at 3,566 (down from 3,871 in 2004/05) and ranked sixth out of all industries for concentration. The search engines industry is the most concentrated media industry of all. Its average HHI concentration was an extraordinarily high 7,648 in 2013, up from 6,864 in 2004. Internet media, after an early stage of a dynamically competitive market structure, often become highly concentrated. Various market segments have their dominant players— Amazon, EBay, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Apple’s App Store, and others.
The Internet sector was believed to be wide open and competitive and would open things up for other industries, but it exhibits strong concentration trends. This observation about Google raises an important question. Do the new internet media make a difference, in the way its enthusiasts fervently believe? Not really. Internet media are actually more concentrated than the old legacy media. The problems are fundamental economics of scale and network effects. There are dominant players in their respective niches—Amazon, Ebay, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Apple i-store, and on. All have overwhelming market shares, and not just in America, but worldwide. These are the industries that were believed to be wide open and
12 competitive. But they exhibit strong concentration trends. The underlying economic factors are easy to describe. High fixed cost, low marginal cost on the supply side, and high network effects on the demand side. That creates very high advantages to scale.
The underlying economics on the supply side are, high fixed cost and low marginal cost; and on the demand side, strong network effects. Because these factors will remain, this trend is likely to continue, especially if the pace of disruptive innovation in the sector slows down a bit.
Online news media is less concentrated than newspapers, though not in all countries. In the US, the incumbency advantage of the major multimedia producers means this online news are almost five times as concentrated as the daily newspapers industry. In fairness, the analysis deals with “commodity news” rather than with specialized online information sources. But such “long tail” information does not negate the fact that most online news attention is focused on a few mass- audience outlets. One must therefore conclude that the internet will not overcome the problems of media concentration. To the contrary, it will accelerate it.
H. What countries have particularly high media concentrations?
Media Concentration in the US is among the lowest in the World. In Mexico, it is among the highest in the world. In 2013, the five countries with the highest average HHI industry HHIs were China (9,840), South Africa (6,242), Turkey (5,990), Egypt (5,544), and Mexico (5,042). The lowest concentrations measured were for the United States (1,565), India (2,690), Canada (2,690), France (2,872), and Sweden (2,815).
Looking at content media only, China has the highest average concentration at 8,317. Also high are Russia (4,132), South Africa (4,151), Ireland (4,047), and Mexico (3,816). The lowest average content industry concentrations are in the US (1,042), Spain (1,665), Taiwan (1,834), and Japan (1,850).
For platform media, the list of the highest concentration countries is similar: China (10,000), Turkey (6,439), South Africa (6,570), Egypt (5,882), and Mexico (5,332). The lower concentrations are in US (1,817), India (2,526), the Netherlands (2,840) and Finland (2,929). Not a single country’s platform concentration is below the antitrust standard of “highly concentrated”.
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Graph 7: Weighted Average HHI – Content Media
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Graph 8: Pooled HHI - Platform Media 12000
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Graph 9: COUNTRIES’ UNWEIGHTED AVERAGE C1 – All Media Unweighted Avg C1 (All Media)
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Graph 10: Power Index Concentration by Country 8000
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I. What are factors for high national media concentration?
The analysis trend to capture country-specific characteristics that affect concentration in that industry. A number of variables were hypothesized and tested: • Population size • Geographical size • Income • Education level • Per Capita Spending • Regulatory quality (for regulated media industries) • Years as a democracy since 1900.
The findings are: Industry concentrations in countries affected by variables of population, wealth, and governance.
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The size of population was a fairly decent-sized negative factor for concentration in the newspaper and multi-channel TV industries. Geographic size of a country was a moderately sized factor for newspapers (a higher concentration) and ISPs (a lower concentration). Per capita income in a country was a negative factor for the concentration in mobile and wireless industries and a positive one for multi-channel platforms. Educational levels were a factor for newspapers and for multichannel (both associated with lower concentration). The “quality of regulation” and a variety of other “good government” metrics showed no statistically significant correlation for any of the industries.
J. Analyzing the Divergence in Concentration
The graphs that follow depict the divergence of a country’s concentration in a media sector (e.g., magazines, newspapers, etc.) from concentration that would be expected based on the various socio-demographic and economic variables. They are ranked in order of such divergence. The results for Mexico show no divergence for magazines, but strong divergences for newspapers, wireless, wireline, and ISPs.
Graph 11: Divergence of Actual National Media Concentration over Predicted Concentration - Magazines
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Graph 12: Divergence of Actual National Media Concentration over Predicted Concentration – Newspapers
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Graph 13: Divergence of Actual National Media Concentration over Predicted Concentration - Wireless
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Graph 14: Divergence of Actual National Media Concentration over Predicted Concentration – Wireline
In wireless, China shows a very high divergence in terms of actual vs. expected concentration. Also high are Mexico, Turkey, and Switzerland. India is at the other extreme. For wireline, it is Japan that is at the high end, together with Turkey, Australia, South Africa, Spain, and Mexico. At the low end are the US, the Netherlands, Finland, and India.
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Graph 15: Divergence of Actual National Media Concentration over Predicted Concentration - ISPs
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Graph 16: Divergence of Actual National Media Concentration over Predicted Concentration – TV Broadcasting
K. The Developing Countries and BRICS
Even where media companies are private, they might not be independent. In many emerging markets, the top individual news media owners have an amazingly high share in news attention, often well above 40%. These companies have often achieved their strong mindshare by close relations with a government in power that awarded preferential licenses. (This is not limited to developing world: in France, President Mitterand in the 1980s awarded the country’s exclusive pay-TV license to Canal Plus, a company headed by his former chief-of- staff. In the US, the FCC under President Eisenhower, awarded no TV license to any newspapers company that had editorially endorsed his Democratic rival.)
Once they achieve dominance, the media companies are hard to dislodge by subsequent governments or competitors. Indeed, given their influence over public opinion, they may receive
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additional benefits. In some cases, their principals become political players themselves, as in the case of Italy, Indonesia, or Thailand. The implicit quid-pro-quo of economic favors and media support eradicates the concept of media as “speaking truth to power”. It would be comforting to believe that the role of governments in the media world declines and with it such leverage. But that is not so. On a large range of issues – telecom infrastructure, content production support and protectionism, intellectual property rights, merger approvals, access and interconnection rules and pricing, standards, etc—the role of governments may well be increasing, and with it the potential for favoritism.
A great deal of attention has been given to the media power of such Murdoch, Redstone, or Berlusconi. It does not, condone such individual media power in rich countries if one also flags the problem of media in developing and emerging countries. In a good number of these countries the market shares and mindshares of domestic media firms are, within their societies, even higher, often by a substantial margin. In Mexico, three companies dominate their respective market niches, Carlos Slim in telecom (85% in wireline and 71% in wireless), the Azcarraga family in TV (68.3%), and O.E.M. in newspapers (59.4%). The critique of media power cannot be asymmetric. Developing and emerging countries cannot get a free pass on anti-pluralism. Indeed, they need active media even more than well-developed democracies.
L. Are there different market characteristics for media in the countries of the North versus those of the South?
The poorer the country, the higher the dominance of the top firm. Media concentration in news is associated with lesser economic development, not with more.