Google is now the largest media owner in the world, attracting three times more ad revenue than the second largest Facebook.
Together, according to Zenith’s latest Top Thirty Global Media Owners report, they controlled 20% of global ad spend in 2016, up from 11% in 2012. Furthermore, they captured 64% of all the growth in global ad spend between 2012 and 2016. According to Zenith, its report has been published since 2007.
In this edition, it has decided to update its methodology and focus purely on media owners’ revenues from advertising, excluding revenues from all other activities. This gives the true measure of their status in the global advertising market.
Google, under its holding company Alphabet, attracted $79.4 billion in ad revenue in 2016, compared to Facebook’s $26.9 billion. The largest traditional media owner Comcast claimed third place, with $12.9 billion in ad revenue.
Zenith adds that internet advertising has overtaken TV to become the world’s largest advertising medium this year. Accordingly, digital platforms that are funded by internet advertising dominate its top 30 ranking.
As well as Alphabet and Facebook, there are five more pure?internet media owners in the top 30: Baidu, Microsoft, Yahoo, Verizon and Twitter. Between them, the seven digital platforms generated $132.8 billion in internet ad revenue in 2016 – that’s 73% of all internet ad spend, and 24% of global ads pend across all media.
Verizon became a media owner in 2015 when it bought AOL, and if all goes to plan will become a much larger one when it acquires Yahoo later this year. Verizon takes 21st place in the current ranking; adding Yahoo to AOL would boost it to sixth.
The fastest?growing media owner in the list is Twitter, which increased its ad revenues by 734% between 2012 and 2016. Tencent is second, having grown by 697% over this period, and Facebook is third, with 528% growth. Two other media owners have more than doubled in size between 2012 and 2016: Baidu, which grew 190%, and Sinclair Broadcast Group, which grew 171%.
Most of the media owners in Zenith’s ranking – 20 out of 30 – are based in the US. The US dominates for several reasons: the US has the biggest ad market, US companies have invested the most in extending their reach abroad, and Silicon Valley innovation has powered the growth of internet advertising. China and Germany each have three media owners in the ranking (Baidu, Tencent and CCTV for China, and Bertelsmann, ProSiebenSat.1 and Axel Springer for Germany).
Then there are four countries with one media owners each: France (JCDecaux), Brazil (Grupo Globo), Italy (Mediaset) and the UK (ITV).
Commenting on the report’s findings, Vittorio Bonori, Zenith’s global brand president, said: “The scale of the biggest platforms highlights the importance of building strong partnerships between agencies and media owners.
“Brands need to deal with these platforms to communicate with consumers effectively and efficiently, and agencies need to ensure they do so on the best terms available.”
Jonathan Barnard, head of forecasting at Zenith, added: “Zenith’s new ranking demonstrates just how much the internet advertising platforms are setting the pace for global ad spend growth.
“Google and Facebook alone have accounted for almost two thirds of global ad spend growth since 2012.”
