Top 100 Media Companies’ Revenues Reach Record $287B in ‘06

The top 100 U.S. media companies (the “Media 100″) in 2006 increased revenues 8.1 percent, bringing in $287 billion - a record, according to the Ad Age DataCenter, which reported that the 10 largest companies accounted for 55.6 percent of the top 100’s revenues (via MarketingCharts).

Time Warner has held the No. 1 spot since 1995 and in 2006 brought in 11.8 percent of Media 100 revenue - or nearly one of eight dollars spent by advertisers and consumers on products and services from the top 100, writes AdAge.

First-ranked Time Warner is more than 100 times the size of the 100th-ranked Schurz Communications, a newspaper, broadcasting and cable operation with estimated revenue of $301 million.

Among the other data released by the Ad Age DataCenter:

• Media 100 internet revenue in 2006 shot up 22.7 percent and was the fastest-growing revenue source; 19th-ranked Google’s net U.S. ad revenue was up 70 percent, reaching $4.1 billion.
• Cable systems followed internet in growth, with cable system and satellite revenue among the Media 100 up 14.8 percent, as a result of both higher prices and cable’s ability to sell additional services, according to AdAge.
• Cable’s Comcast Corp. ranked No. 2, and other major cable players - DirecTV Group, Cox Enterprises and EchoStar Communications - were also in the top 10.
• Time Warner owns 84 percent of Time Warner Cable, which was the second-largest cable system operator after Comcast.
• If one were to factor out cable system/satellite revenue, the Media 100’s growth rate would fall to 5.5 percent (instead of 8.1 percent).
• Among Media 100 traditional media companies, cable TV networks’ revenues increased most (8.6 percent). Yellow Pages (-0.5 percent) and newspapers (+0.4 percent) were at the bottom of the growth pile.