Who Owns the News Media Database – A Summary of Findings

In the last 18 months many newspaper companies divested most or all of their holdings while a number of new entities, including hedge funds and private equity firms, jumped in.

According to the investment banking firm of Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, which monitors newspaper transactions, a total of 71 daily newspapers were sold as part of 11 different transactions during 2011, the busiest year for sales since 2007. And newspapers were not the only media to undergo major changes. The last 18 months also saw local television sales reach new heights, the merging of Newsweek and the Daily Beast, Comcast's acquisition of NBC Universal, the Huffington Post's movement into web TV and further reach among U.S. broadcast companies into the Hispanic market. The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism has compiled a new interactive database to help users make sense of the changes at the highest levels. Who Owns the News Media provides detailed statistics on the companies that now own our nation's news media outlets, from newspapers to local television news stations to radio to digital, and this accompanying summary highlights the major changes of the year.