TOP MEDIA COMPANIES IN USA
1.ATT.
- Headquarters: Dallas, Texas
- Year Founded: 1983
- 2019 Annual Revenue: $181.2 billion
- 2019 Growth Rate: -5.21%
While ATT is mostly known to the public for being the world’s largest telecommunications company and cell phone provider, they’re also considered the biggest media conglomerate by revenue after the acquisition of Warner Media in 2018.
Since WarnerMedia is a major mass media company, it pushed its new owner into this role.
- HBO and Cinemax
- Turner Entertainment Networks
- Adult Swim and Cartoon Network
- CNN News Group
- DC Entertainment and Films
- Warner Bros Pictures
The bandwidth of viewership that ATT receives through these companies working under their domain, coupled with their immense yearly revenue makes them the largest media company to date.
2.Facebook.
- Headquarters: Menlo Park, California
- Year Founded: 2004
- 2019 Annual Revenue: $70.697 billion
- 2019 Growth Rate: +26.61%
Facebook is the #1 social networking website in the world, but it also acts as a media conglomerate. Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, insists the website is a technology company, as opposed to media.
Regardless, it’s taken on the form of mass media by providing people with news and loads of information on a grand scale.
Facebook is hesitant to label itself as a media source because it inherently makes them responsible for the information that’s reported on their website. With 2.8 billion users worldwide, that’s a lot of people to be responsible for informing.
Facebook is currently the third most popular website in the world, right behind Google and Youtube. The company also generates massive revenue annually, which is why it’s considered one of the largest media companies globally.
3.The Walt Disney Company.
- Headquarters: Burbank, California
- Year Founded: 1923
- 2019 Annual Revenue: $69.607 billion
- 2019 Growth Rate: +17.12%
Media conglomerates don’t necessarily have to be news channels. They can be the largest producer of American animated film and television production, like The Walt Disney Company.
Founded almost a hundred years ago, The Walt Disney Company is a mass media company that generally creates family-friendly content. Disney operates under a few film production company titles. These include:
- Walt Disney Pictures
- Walt Disney Animation Studios
- Pixar
- Marvel Studios
- 20th Century Studios
- Searchlight Pictures
- Blue Sky Studios
Disney also owns several cable television networks, such as:
- Disney Channel
- Freeform
- ESPN
- FX
- National Geographic
In addition to television and movie production, The Walt Disney Company also earns a lot of its revenue from theme parks and consumer products.
Through these business avenues, The Walt Disney Company employs 223,000 people, as of 2019. More than a quarter of them work at Walt Disney World Resort, making them the largest single-location employer in the United States.
4.Comcast Corporation.
- Headquarters: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Year Founded: 1963
- 2019 Annual Revenue: $41.695 billion
- 2019 Growth Rate: +13.55%
Comcast Corporation owns one of the most influential mass media and entertainment organizations in the world, NBCUniversal. This acquisition gave Comcast control of numerous brands that have taken them to conglomerate status. Some of these include:
- Universal Pictures
- Dreamworks Animation
- Universal Parks and Resorts
- MSNBC
- Oxygen
- E!
- USA Network
These takeovers have made Comcast Corporation the second-largest broadcasting and television conglomerate in the world solely on the basis of revenue. They are also the largest cable television and internet service provider in America, serving areas in 40 States.
5.WarnerMedia.
- Headquarters: New York, New York
- Year Founded: 1990
- 2019 Annual Revenue: $33.5 billion
- 2019 Growth Rate: +43.46
Previously known as Time Warner, WarnerMedia was acquired by ATT in 2018 for the sum of $85 billion and the assumption of the acquisition’s debt. This effectively pushed ATT into being the largest media conglomerate in the United States by revenue.
WarnerMedia has ties to film, television, and cable companies. Some of their assets in this department include:
- Turner Broadcasting
- HBO
- Warner Bros.
- New Line Cinema
Warner Media was ranked 98th on the Fortune 500 list in 2018.
6.Fox Corporation.
- Headquarters: New York, New York
- Year Founded: 2019
- 2019 Annual Revenue: $11.389 billion
- 2019 Growth Rate: +12.17%
The founding of Fox Corporation seems fairly recent, but that’s the result of a breakdown of its original company titled “21st Century Fox.”
When 21st Century Fox was dismantled, the majority of its stock was acquired by The Walt Disney Company. Some assets remained after the deal, and these went on to create the Fox Corporation.
Mainly, the Fox Corporation works in the news and sports sector of the television broadcast. Their operating assets include:
- Fox Broadcasting Company
- Fox Television Stations
- Fox News Media
- Fox Sports Media Group
- Tuning Streaming Service
Despite being the product of the pieces that were left behind, Fox Corporation continues to be one of the largest media conglomerates in the United States, and their growth is projected to rise.
7.ViacomCBS.
- Headquarters: Manhattan, New York
- Year Founded: 2019
- 2019 Annual Revenue: $27.812 billion
- 2019 Growth Rate: +2.06%
The establishment of ViacomCBS, similarly to many other media companies, emerged from a merger between CBS Corporation and Viacom in 2019. Hence their short history of little more than a year accounting for a seemingly enormous corporation.
ViacomCBS functions through a series of assets, much like the other conglomerates in the industry. The main holdings associated with ViacomCBS include:
- Paramount Pictures Film
- CBS Entertainment Group
- MTV, Nickelodeon, BET, Comedy Central, and Showtime
- Simon Schuster Publishing
In total, the ViacomCBS conglomerate operates 170 networks with an estimated 700 million users across them.
8.Netflix.
- Headquarters: Los Gatos, California
- Year Founded: 1997
- 2019 Annual Revenue: $20.156 billion
- 2019 Growth Rate: +27.62%
Netflix is one of the most impressive media companies to arise out of the 21st century. The business functions as a content streaming platform, and in recent years has transitioned into a production company as well.
In 2021, Netflix has officially reached the mark of 203.7 million subscribers worldwide, and nearly 66 million of them are Americans.
Netflix currently has headquarters all over the world, from England to Los Angeles. The company is well connected internationally, operating in more than 190 countries.
Today, Netflix is officially the biggest media company in terms of market capitalization, or market value.
9.Hearst Corporation.
- Headquarters: New York, New York
- Year Founded: 1887
- 2019 Annual Revenue: $11.5 billion
- 2019 Growth Rate: +0.9%
While they have a hand in television like many other media companies, Hearst Corporation mainly owns newspapers and magazines.
While the written forms of media have taken a major backseat to more visual mediums in the 21st century, they’re still a viable resource that millions of people use to gather information.
Hearst Corporation currently owns 360 companies in various fields. Some of the most popular media companies under their control include:
- Cosmopolitan
- ELLE
- Esquire
- Good Housekeeping
- O, The Oprah Magazine
- San Francisco Chronicle
- The News-Times
- Midland Daily News
That’s just to name a few businesses that the Hearst Corporation owns outright. The company also owns all A+E Networks in a 50/50 split with The Walt Disney Company.
10.News Corp.
- Headquarters: New York, New York
- Year Founded: 2013
- 2019 Annual Revenue: $10.074 billion
- 2019 Growth Rate: +10.42%
The News Corp that exists today was an offspring of a conglomerate that had been around since 1980 under the full title of “News Corporation.”
The rejuvenated version of News Corp is a media company owned by Rupert Murdoch, which does its business in news production, television, and book publishing.
A sister company to another spin-off company, Fox Corporation, News Corp holds an eclectic group of assets. Some of the most profitable companies under their control include:
- News UK
- Dow Jones Company
- News Corp Australia
- HarperCollins Publishing
News Corp is also a player in the digital real estate market as the owner of REA Group and Realtor.com.
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