Misc
Who Owns Your Favorite News Media Outlet?
Who Owns Your Favorite News Media Outlet?
It’s no secret that news media is a tough industry.
For various reasons — from tech disruption to changing media consumption habits — the U.S. has seen a net loss of 1,800 local newspapers over the past 15 years. As regional newspapers are bundled together, and venture-backed digital media brands expand their portfolios, the end result is a trend towards increased consolidation.
Today’s graphic, created by TitleMax, is a broad look at who owns U.S. news media outlets.
Escaping the News Desert
As outlets battle the duopoly of Google and Facebook for advertising revenue, the local news game has become increasingly difficult.
As a result, news deserts have been springing up all over America:
What happens when times get tough?
One option is to simply go out of business, while another traditional solution is to combine forces through consolidation. While not ideal, the latter option at least provides a potential route to revenue and cost synergies that make it easier to compete in a challenging environment.
Nation of Consolidation
Though the numbers have decreased in recent years, regional news media still reaches millions of people each day.
Below is a look at the top 20 owners of America’s newspapers:
Parent Companies | Total Papers | Example brands |
---|---|---|
New Media Investment Group | 451 | Patriot Ledger, The Columbus Dispatch, The Providence Journal |
Gannett | 216 | USA Today, Detroit Free Press, Arizona Republic |
Digital First Media | 158 | Oakland Tribune, San Jose Mercury News, Denver Post |
Adams Publishing Group | 144 | The Charlotte Sun, Wyoming Tribune-Eagle |
CNHI | 114 | Niagara Gazette, The Huntsville Item, The Lebanon Reporter |
Lee Enterprises | 100 | Arizona Daily Sun, St. Louis Post Dispatch |
Ogden Newspapers | 81 | The Maui News, The Toledo Chronicle, Salem News |
Tribune Publishing | 77 | Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun |
Berkshire Hathaway Media | 75 | Buffalo News, Winston-Salem Journal, Omaha World-Herald |
Shaw Media | 71 | Suburban Life Magazine, Putnam County Record |
Boone Newspapers | 66 | The Austin Daily Herald, The Charlotte Gazette |
Hearst Corp. | 66 | San Francisco Chronicle, Seattlepi.com, Houston Chronicle |
Paxton Media Group | 58 | Daily Corinthian, Connersville News-Examiner |
Landmark Media Enterprises | 55 | Citrus County Chronicle, The News-Enterprise |
Community Media Group | 51 | Lafayette Leader, The Wellsboro Gazette |
AIM Media | 50 | Odessa American, El Nuevo Heraldo |
McClatchy | 49 | Idaho Statesman, Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee |
Advance Publications | 46 | The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired, The Oregonian, NJ.com |
Rust Communications | 44 | Cherokee Chronicle Times, Southeast Missourian |
News Media Corp. | 43 | Cheyenne Minuteman, Brookings Register, Newport News Times |
Turnover in this segment of the market has been brisk. In fact, more than half of existing newspapers have changed ownership in the past 15 years, some multiple times. For example, the LA Times is now in the hands of its third owner since 2000, after being purchased by billionaire biotech investor Patrick Soon-Shiong.
The industry may be facing another dramatic drop off in ownership diversity as the two largest players, New Media Investment Group and Gannett, are on the path to merging. If shareholders give the thumbs-up during the vote this November, Gannett will have amassed the largest online audience of any American news provider.
The Flying Vs: Vox and Vice
It isn’t just regional papers being swept up in the latest round of mergers and acquisitions — new media is getting into the mix as well.
Vox Media recently inked a deal to acquire New York Media, the firm behind New York Magazine, Vulture, and The Cut.
I think you’re going to see that trend [of consolidation] across the industry. I just hope it’s done for the right reasons. You see too many of these things done for financial engineering.
– Jim Bankoff, CEO of Vox Media
Meanwhile, Vice recently acquired Refinery29 for $400 million, giving it access to a new audience skewed towards millennial women. This match-up seems awkward on the surface, but it allows advertisers to reach a broader cross-section of people within each ad ecosystem.
Both companies announced layoffs in the past year, and this restructuring may help both companies win as they consolidate resources.
The Bottom Line
While news media isn’t quite as consolidated as the broader media ecosystem, it’s certainly trending in that direction. Thousands of American communities that had local newspapers in 2004 now have no news coverage at all, while remaining papers are increasingly becoming units within an umbrella company, with no direct stake in community reporting.
That said, until the issue of monetization is definitively sorted out, consolidation may be the only way to keep the presses from stopping.
About the Graphic
This list of top 100 news sites was compiled using the following criteria:
– The top “digital-native” news outlets by monthly unique visitors (Pew Research and ComScore, excluding sports)
– The top newspapers by average Sunday circulation (Pew Research and Alliance for Audited Media)
– Alexa’s top sites under the category of news (U.S. only, excluding user-generated)
Note: The graphic has been updated to reflect changes in ownership for Refinery29, Gizmodo, and Jezebel.
Technology
Charting Grand Theft Auto: GTA’s Budget and Revenues
Dive into the GTA budget through the years, with GTA VI set to be the most expensive video game of all time.

Charting Grand Theft Auto: GTA’s Budget and Revenues
Over 10 years since the launch of Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V), the second most-sold video game in history, Rockstar Games has announced its sequel GTA VI will be “coming 2025.”
As the anticipation only grows for this next big entry in the franchise, we take a look at the GTA budget through the years. How much have the last two games cost to make, how much have they earned, and how do they compare with the latest entry?
Data for this visualization comes from Statista, TweakTown, and Twitch Metrics.
How Much Has GTA VI Cost to Make?
The GTA franchise has grown enormously in scale from humble beginnings as a top-down, 2D video game in 1997. Fifteen installments later, the upcoming release, GTA VI, is estimated to be the most expensive video game to be made yet.
Here’s a look at how much GTA VI and the last two major releases cost, and how much revenue they’ve earned as of August 2023.
Year | Title | Production Costs ($) | Revenue ($) | Copies Sold |
---|---|---|---|---|
2025 (est.) | GTA VI | $2B (rumored) | N/A | N/A |
2013 | GTA V | $265M | $7.7B | 185M |
2008 | GTA IV | $100M | $2B | 25M |
In 2008, GTA IV cost around $100 million—already a budget that rivalled big Hollywood releases. However with 25 million copies sold, the game earned nearly $2 billion—a five-fold return on its production cost.
Five years later, GTA V (2013) cost more than $200 million to make—twice GTA IV’s budget. A decade after its release, GTA V has generated close to $8 billion, with hundreds of millions in annual revenue from subscriptions and in-game purchases—a model that its successor is sure to follow.
In fact, subscription fees and in-game purchases represented 78% of Take-Two Interactive’s (parent of GTA developer Rockstar Games) revenues in 2023.
Analysts estimate the to-be-released GTA VI’s costs at $2 billion, including marketing and other expenses. A massive open-world (set in the Miami-inspired “Vice City”), cutting edge graphics, and a reportedly brand-new game engine are all reasons for the game’s outsized budget.
For comparison, the current most expensive games to have been made include Red Dead Redemption 2 (also by Rockstar) and Star Citizen, both reportedly with a $500 million budget.
Meanwhile, Take-Two Interactive shares are up more than 50% for the year.
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