2005 Annual Report - Online Ownership

Of the 25 online news sites, eight in ten are owned by media companies in the 100 largest in revenue as reported by Advertising Age.8 For example, CNN was the most visited news site and AOL News was fourth. Both sites are owned by Time Warner, the leading media company in total U.S. media revenue in 2003.

Ownership of Most Popular News Sites

By company size, January through October, 2004

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Advertising Age, ‘‘100 Leading Media Companies list’’

The top 100 list is determined by domestic media revenues.The top 25 sites are based on Nielsen//NetRatings data for January-October 2004.

Nearly a third (32%) of the top 25 news sites in 2004 were owned by the top ten U.S. media companies; more than half (56%) were owned by the 20 biggest companies. So the data point to heavy concentration of ownership of the news the public is getting online.

With the reelection of President Bush in November, one can only speculate how Bush's second term will affect trends in media ownership and concentration. The FCC was partly successful in his first term in increasing the size of the national television audience that any one company was allowed to reach, but many of the modifications it sought were thrown out by the courts.