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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Calculator

Calculators are machines for automatically performing arithmetical operations and certain mathematical functions. Modern calculators are descendants of a digital arithmetic machine devised by Blaise Pascal in 1642. Later in the 17th century, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz created a more advanced machine, and, especially in the late 19th century, inventors produced calculating machines that were smaller and smaller and less and less laborious to use.

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