The most salient trend in network news ownership is that journalism is an increasingly small part of what the corporations that own the networks do.
Some observers have used corporate annual reports as a proxy, albeit an uncertain one, to gauge the importance of a division to a corporation's overall identity. By that measure, news is indeed a relatively small part of these entities. The Walt Disney Company's 95-page annual report contains 22 sentences about news, 14 of them about the network, two about local news, three about broadband, one about wireless and two about radio. General Electric's annual report says the least. In its 117 pages, the narrative does not mention NBC News even once by name, though there is a reference to "advertising reductions because of coverage of the Iraq war ($0.1 billion)." (Networks can lose advertising revenue during major news events by pre-empting regular programming.)
A more quantitative assessment of value is to break out how much of the revenue of the owners of the Big Three networks comes from broadcasting - that is, all of the revenue they receive from whatever TV stations and TV networks they may own aside from cable. Only part of that revenue, of course, is from news.
Looking at data from Advertising Age's annual "100 Leading Media Companies," broadcast revenue as a percentage of the overall revenue of parent companies has either dropped very slightly or held steady since 2002.
Viacom's broadcast revenue, $7.8 billion for 2003, is 29% of the company's total revenue of $26.6 billion. Broadcast provides $4.8 billion, or 18%, of Disney's total revenue of $27.1 billion. Broadcast provides only a small portion, 5%, of GE's overall revenue: Only 4.6%, or $6.2 billion, of GE's total $134.2 billion in revenue comes from broadcasting, and just a fraction of that comes from news.1 [1]
When cable is added to the mix, the contributions to overall revenue change. While the networks complain about cable competition, some of that competition comes from their own corporate siblings.
Viacom's television revenue (broadcast and cable combined) of $13.4 billion constitutes a full 50% of the company's overall revenue, a 1% decrease from 2002. But the additional revenue is derived almost entirely from entertainment. Viacom, which does not own a cable news channel, does own, among others, such popular cable stations as MTV and Nickelodeon, both of which run very modest news operations.2 [2]
In 2003, 38% of Disney's revenue came from television. That was a 3% gain from 2002 and totaled $10.3 billion. But it, too, owns no cable news channel, so nothing is added from cable by news. It's digital start-up ABC News Now is in its infancy. Disney's cable portfolio, among other channels, includes ESPN, which does a significant amount of sports journalism, as well as A&E and, of course, the Disney Channel.3 [3]
GE's cable revenues, as with broadcast, are substantially lower than those of either Disney or Viacom. The company, whose cable holdings include two channels offering news (CNBC and MSNBC) earns just 6% of its overall revenue from television. The numbers take into account the acquisition by GE of Vivendi Universal. The $8.2 billion earned in 2003, while an increase from 2002, did not change the percentage of television's overall contribution to GE's revenue.4 [4]
More recent numbers are available that isolate the revenues of the three broadcast TV networks alone. In 2004, according to Broadcast and Cable, NBC TV by itself had revenues of $5 billion, CBS $4.5 billion and ABC $3.2 billion.5 [5]
Dollars in Billions
| 2003 Broadcast Revenue | 2003 Cable Revenue | 2003 TV Revenue (Broadcast + Cable) | 2003 Total Revenue | 2003 Broadcast Revenue as % of Total | 2003 Cable Revenue as % of Total | 2003 TV Revenue as % of Total | |
| Viacom | $7.8 | $5.6 | $13.4 | $26.6 | 29% | 21% | 50% |
| Disney | $4.8 | $5.5 | $10.3 | $27 | 17% | 21% | 38% |
| NBC Universal (GE) | $6.2 | $.2 | $8.2 | $134.2 | 5% | 1.0% | 6% |
Source: Advertising Age, "100 Leading Media Companies"
Dollars in billions
| 2002 Broadcast Revenue | 2003 Broadcast Revenue | 2002 Total Revenue | 2003 Total Revenue | 2002 Broadcast Revenue as% of Total | 2003 Broadcast Revenue as% of Total | |
| Viacom | $7.5 | $7.8 | $24.6 | $26.6 | 30% | 29% |
| Disney | $4.5 | $4.8 | $25.3 | $27 | 18% | 17% |
| NBC Universal (GE) | $6.8 | $6.2 | $131.7 | $134.2 | 5% | 5% |
Source: Advertising Age, "100 Leading Media Companies"
Dollars in billions
| 2002 TV Revenue (Broadcast + Cable) | 2003 TV Revenue (Broadcast + Cable) | 2002 Total Revenue | 2003 Total Revenue | 2002 TV Revenue as% of Total | 2003 TV Revenue as% of Total | |
| Viacom | $12.5 | $13.4 | $24.6 | $26.6 | 51% | 50% |
| Disney | $8.9 | $10.3 | $25.3 | $27 | 35% | 38% |
| NBC Universal (GE) | $7.3 | $8.2 | $131.7 | $134.2 | 6% | 6% |
Source: Advertising Age, "100 Leading Media Companies"