The Big Five of Commercial Media

After a number of mergers and acquisitions five powerful media conglomerates lead the world's content production and distribution. They operate on an international basis with subsidiaries all around the globe and engage in every imaginable kind of media industry.

Table: The World's Leading Media Companies

Media Company

 1998 Revenues

(in US$)

 Property/Corporate Information
AOL Time Warner (US)

 26,838.000.000*

 http://www.timewarner.com/corp/about/timewarnerinc/corporate/index.html
Disney (US)

 22,976.000.000

 http://www.disney.com
Bertelsmann (GER)

 16,389.000.000

http://www.bertelsmann.com/facts/report/report.cfm
News Corporation (AUS)

 12,841.000.000

 http://www.newscorp.com/public/cor/cor_m.htm
Viacom (US)

 12,100.000.000

 http://www.viacom.com/global.tin


(* Revenues of Time Warner only (merger with AOL took place in January 2000)

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Charles Babbage

b. December 26, 1791, London, England
d. October 18, 1871, London, England

English mathematician and inventor who is credited with having conceived the first automatic digital computer. The idea of mechanically calculating mathematical tables first came to Babbage in 1812 or 1813. Later he made a small calculator that could perform certain mathematical computations to eight decimals. During the mid-1830s Babbage developed plans for the so-called analytical engine, the forerunner of the modern digital computer. In this device he envisioned the capability of performing any arithmetical operation on the basis of instructions from punched cards, a memory unit in which to store numbers, sequential control, and most of the other basic elements of the present-day computer.

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