Handbook of Corporate Communication and Public ... - Blogs Unpad

Neither can it be forgotten that the media
is a labour intensive industry and for an enterprise
of any size this is equally true of websites.
Even the smallest local paper requires
at least a couple of journalists, as would a
small magazine-style website, but it would
also need IT staff, as do printers and newspapers.
The United Kingdom’s biggest site,
www.bbc.co.uk, reportedly employs 200
people and cost £100 million in 2002, 12 but
the true figure would be much higher if it took
into account the cost of sourcing the material
it recycles and repurposes from BBC radio and
television.
Table 15.1 Top 25 US web properties by parent
company
Parent
Unique
audience
1 AOL Time Warner 76,353,004
2 Microsoft 72,891,223
3 Yahoo! 66,217,672
4 Amazon 28,115,562
5 Google 27,863,289
6 eBay 27,120,841
7 Terra Lycos 22,999,754
8 RealNetworks 22,805,779
9 United States Government 21,694,762
10 About-Primedia 21,004,816
11 Viacom International 15,022,286
12 eUniverse 14,935,148
13 Walt Disney Internet Group 14,688,910
14 USA Interactive 14,624,792
15 Sharman Networks 13,519,847
16 CNET Networks 12,604,100
17 Landmark Communications 11,716,856
18 Apple Computer 11,669,656
19 Classmates 11,145,862
20 InfoSpace Network 10,983,618
21 AT&T 10,523,768
22 The Gator Corporation 10,000,792
23 EarthLink 9,459,880
24 American Greetings 8,710,937
25 Wal-Mart Stores 8,645,168
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings Audience Measurement Service,
December 2002
Table 15.2 Top 10 UK web properties
Property
The economics of the internet reinforce the
‘media gap’ theory – websites and email are a
highly cost-effective way of communicating
with relatively small numbers of people but
once audience numbers reach hundreds of
thousands or high functionality is required,
then costs spiral. It is also important to note
that websites and email can communicate
internationally as easily and cheaply as
nationally (Tables 15.1 and 15.2).
Assessing the effect of ICTs
Unique
audience
1 MSN 8,750,554
2 Yahoo! 6,959,887
3 Google 6,737,921
4 Microsoft 5,726,141
5 AOL Time Warner 5,568,160
6 Wanadoo 5,067,551
7 BBC 4,762,173
8 British Telecom 4,454,923
9 Amazon 4,188,153
10 eBay 3,995,562
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings Audience Measurement Service,
January 2003
The internet has made little impact on the
economic realities which shape the mass communications
landscape. As a way of reaching
national audiences of hundreds of thousands
there is no significant cost saving over the ‘old’
media. It is unsurprising that the most popular
sites in most countries are run by either big
companies like Microsoft or national telecoms
providers; or well established media organizations
like the BBC or AOL Time Warner. These
are complemented by start-ups like Yahoo!
and Google who had sufficient funding and a
good enough product to challenge the big
boys. Mass communication continues to be
© 2004 Sandra Oliver for editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters, the contributors