The Industry
The media buying market is certainly big enough to support more than one player. Traditional media generate $200 billion in revenue each year, according to one estimate. Internet advertising revenues are a more slippery target, but AdOutlet.com's research puts that market at $2 billion with a 50% annual growth rate.
For radio, relaxed regulations led to a massive wave of consolidation in an industry with about $14 billion in annual ad revenues. Ads for broadcast and cable TV are expected to bring in about $14 and $17 billion, respectively, in 1999. Advertisers took notice, they spend 10 times as much money on broadcast as on cable 10 years ago, but by 1998 national cable ads received more than 30% of the funds spent on national network ads.
Today publishing is a $750 billion business worldwide. Since 1993, the $80 billion industry has grown 13% worldwide. With about 1,500 daily newspapers, the US newspaper industry has surpassed the $50 billion mark with more than 5% annual growth, bolstered by a strong economy.
Hoover's, which began as a business book publisher, is now expected to derive 90% of its revenues from electronic publishing.
With sales of more than $14 billion and growing at about 8% annually, the US magazine industry, like the newspaper industry, derives the bulk of its revenues from advertising.
In this $210 billion, highly fragmented industry -- 80% of all companies have sales of less than $2 million annually.
Some companies such as AllAdvantage.com, in order to attract more potential buyers did implement a reward system consisting of paying web surfers for the time they spend per web site.