Merger & Acquisition Benchmarks: Media

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media

This page provides some media industry benchmarks for acquisitions and disposals during the telecommunication booms and busts of the past twenty years.

There is a broader discussion of the broadcasting, print (and also here), sound recording and film revolutions elsewhere on this site, along with a discussion of private equity deals in the media sector.

media

Media sector landmarks include -

News Corp buys Metromedia for US$1.6bn in 1985
National Amusements buys Viacom for US$3.4bn in 1986
Sony buys CBS Records for US$2bn in 1987
Bond gives Packer $1bn for Nine network in 1987
Time Inc merges with Warner Communications in US$14bn deal in 1989
Sony buys Columbia Pictures and TriStar for US$4.8bn in 1989
Matsushita buys MCA for US$6.6bn in 1990
Dun & Bradstreet pays US$333m for Management Science America in 1990
EMI buys Virgin Music Group for US$960m in 1992
Viacom buys Paramount for US$8.3bn in 1993
Viacom buys Blockbuster for US$4.9bn in 1993
Cox buys Times Mirror Cable for US$2.3bn in 1994
Rogers buys Maclean Hunter for C$3.1bn in 1994
Gannett buys Multimedia for US$2.3bn in 1995
Seagram buys 80% of MCA for US$5.7bn
Westinghouse buys CBS for US$5.4bn in 1995
Disney buys Capital Cities/ABC for US$19bn in 1995
Time Warner buys Turner for US$8.5bn in 1995
Granada buys Forte group for £3.6bn in 1996
CBS buys Infinity for US$4.9bn in 1996
Capstar buys SFX Broadcasting for US$2.1bn in 1997
Belo buys Providence Journal for US$1.5bn in 1997
Reed-Elsevier buys Chilton Business Group from Disney for US$447m in 1997
Mirror Group buys Midland Independent Newspapers for £297m in 1997
Chancellor buys Capstar for US$4.1bn in 1998
Reed-Elsevier buys Matthew Bender & rest of Shepard's for US$1.65bn in 1998
Clear pays US$6.5bn for Jacor in 1998
Bertelsmann buys Random House for US$1.3bn in 1998
AOL buys Netscape for US$4.2bn in 1998
Seagram buys Polygram for US$15bn in 1998
CBS buys King World for US$2.5bn in 1999
Yahoo! buys broadcast.com for US$5.7bn in 1999
VNU buys Nielsen for US$2.7bn in 1999
CBS buys Outdoor Systems for US$6.5bn in 1999
Yahoo buys Geocities for US$5bn in 1999
Viacom buys CBS for US$38bn in 1999
Clear Channel buys AMFM for US$23bn in 1999
AOL and Time Warner merge in US$166bn deal in 2000
Tribune buys Times Mirror for US$6.5bn in 2000
CanWest Global pays C$3.5bn for Hollinger Internationalt's Canadian newspapers in 2000
Telefonica buys Lycos for US$12.5bn in 2000
Granada buys tv interests of United News & Media for £1.75bn in 2000
Vivendi buys Seagram for US$34bn in 2000
Clear buys SFX Entertainment for US$4.4bn in 2000
Thomson buys Harcourt units for US$2.06bn in 2001
Clear buys Ackerley Group radio stations for US$850m in 2001
Forstmann Little buys Citadel for US$2bn in 2001
ntl sells NTL Australia to Macquarie Bank consortium for $850m in 2002
Yahoo buys HotJobs job board for US$436m in 2002
Vivendi sells Groupe Express-Expansion and Groupe l'Etudiant to Hersant's Socpresse for €200m in 2002
ntl sells ntl:broadcast (over 3,000 towers in UK) to Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group for £1.27bn in 2004
LexisNexis acquires Seisint for US$775m in 2004
Telstra pays $636m for Trading Post classifieds publications in 2004
DirecTV sells 80.5% stake in PanAmSat to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts for US$4.3bn in 2004
New York Times buys About.com for US$410m in 2005
IAC/InterActiveCorp buys Ask Jeeves for US$1.9bn
Lee Enterprises announces plan to acquire Pulitzer newspaper operations for US$1.46bn in 2005
T&F Informa buys IIR for US$1.4bn in 2005
abortive VNU acquisition of IMS Health for US$6.9bn in 2005
Axel Springer announces €2.5bn deal for control of ProSiebenSat in 2005
Macquarie Media Group agrees to buy Taiwan Broadband Communications for $1.19bn in 2005
NTT DoCoMo buys 2.6% stake in Fuji Television for US$176m in 2005
Rank sells Deluxe Film arm to MacAndrews & Forbes for £437m in 2005
Disney buys Pixar for US$7.4bn in 2006
AMC Entertainment absorbs Loews Cineplex Entertainment in 2006
NBC Universal agrees to buy iVillage for around US$600m in 2006
NTL buys Virgin Mobile Holdings for US$1.67bn
Clear Channel agrees to US$18.7bn takeover by Lee and Bain consortium in 2006
Wiley buys Blackwell for £572m in 2006
Riverdeep buys Houghton Mifflin for US$3.36bn in 2006
John Fairfax buys Rural Press for $2.9bn in 2006

A more comprehensive timeline of media group churn is here.

A note on media takeovers and sales of web sites/services is here.

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