Australian media ownership

A high percentage of Australian media websites are owned by just a few large media corporations. This seems to be much more so than in the UK or US.

Some of the big players are:

News Ltd, the Australian part of News Corp (Rupert Murdoch).
* 68 per cent of the capital city and national newspaper market;
* 77 per cent of the Sunday newspaper market;
* 62 per cent of the suburban newspaper market;
* 18 per cent of the regional newspaper market.

It's major digital publications through http://www.newsdigitalmedia.com.au/ are:
- http://www.news.com.au/ National news
- http://www.realestate.com.au/ Housing classifieds
- http://carsguide.news.com.au/ Cars classifieds
- http://www.careerone.com.au/ Careers classifieds
- http://www.truelocal.com.au/ Local business search
- http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/ National news
- http://www.taste.com.au/ Recipes (I love this one!)
- http://www.vogue.com.au/ Australian Vogue
and a whole load of other national and regional newspaper and lifestyle sites.


Fairfax
* 21 per cent of the capital city and national newspaper market;
* 22 per cent of the Sunday newspaper market;
* 17 per cent of the suburban newspaper market;
* 16 per cent of the regional newspaper market.

It's major digital publications through http://www.fairfax.com.au/ are:
- http://www.smh.com.au/ Sydney Morning Herald Regional newspaper
- http://www.watoday.com.au/ Western Australian Regional newspaper
- http://www.domain.com.au/ Housing classifieds
- http://www.drive.com.au/ Cars classifieds
- http://mycareer.com.au/ Careers classifieds
- http://www.rsvp.com.au/ Dating
- http://www.afr.com/ Financial news
And many other news, entertainment, classifieds, travel, specialised careers, and lifestyle sites.

Seven Network
owns a number of free and pay TV channels, also has a partnership with yahoo known as Yahoo7 http://au.yahoo.com/ through which you can access all Yahoo products.

PBL
Owns the 9 TV network and also has a stake in Sky News. It has a partnership with Microsoft Nine MSN http://ninemsn.com.au/ through which you can access all of the MSN products.

Figures here and more info including telecommunication and internet service companies can be seen here.

The websites developed or bought by these companies are definitely going to have more financial backing and economies of scale than independent startups. I'm wondering how they manage the balance between advertising opportunities and the user experience, how they're affected by the economic climate right now and what kind of product development processes they use. Would be interesting to hear what it's like to work inside these companies...