In an overview of the worldwide market, sixteen companies have been named as the main drivers of digital media and entertainment.
In-Stat/MDR set out to produce a report that identifies those organisations at the vanguard of digital broadcasting development. Twelve corporations were classified as Media Mega Companies including AOL Time Warner which despite its recent tribulations (see
AOL Time Warner Posts Record Loss, Turner To Quit) still accounts for 22.4% of the group’s value.
Other significant powerhouses are Disney, Viacom and Vivendi Universal who each bring in about 10% while Sony, News Corporation, Cox Enterprises and Bertelsmann contribute about 5% each. The minority players, with less than 5% of the group’s value are Lagardère, GE/NBC, Grupo Televisa and Liberty Media.
In-Stat/MDR predicts that the combined annual revenues of these dozen companies will increase from $150 billion in 2002 to about $178 billion in 2007. Particular attention is paid to the progress being made by News Corp which apparently leads the way in the interactive TV field. This puts it at the head of the queue to roll out the next generation of movies, videos and personalised programming. Within the digital media sector, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese and other non-English language programming is said to have the most potential for growth.
In addition to the Media Mega Companies, the study names the BBC, NHK Nippon Hoso Kyokai, PBS and Microsoft as key influencers of the media industry. Opportunities for the latter should be enhanced with the launch of the Windows Media 9 Series that will result in a new genre of web content that is accessible by TV and mobile.
