Company Information
The following databases will allow you to look up information about media companies, such as a profile of the company, subsidiaries, target audiences, competition, and more.
Search for the name of the media company you are interested in, such as Sony, Viacom, etc. If you cannot find your company in one of these databases, try another one because they all contain different sets of companies.
Business Librarian Chad Boeninger has an excellent resource guide with more information on library resources useful for researching a single company.
- Mergent OnlineSearch for the name of a media organization in Mergent to find a report with a summary of their major business activities, financial data (as available), ownership and executive information and lists of competing organizations.
- OneSourceClick "Connect" in ALICE record, then OneSource link at database.
OneSource offers company news, executives, final data and links to industry information. - Lexis NexisLexis Nexis company profiles offer some financial data, executive information, links to recent news, related legal cases and links to intellectual property information (i.e. patents and trademarks).
- Business Source CompleteAnother helpful resource would be the article database Business Source Complete. Here you can find articles from media trade & industry magazines, and also media industry overviews by geographic region.
Try searching for:
- the name of the company
- the name of the company in addition to an issue you know they are dealing with (ex: globalization)
- a specific aspect of media (ex: audience)
- For a specific country/region: media industry profile AND country name
Industry Information
The following databases are for searching for information on the media industry in general.
To search these databases, you often need to know the North American Industry Classification (NAICS) code for your company. This can be usually found in the description for your company that you found in the company databases above. Look for the "NAICS" code, which will be a number listed on a company profile page.
For example, this Mergent profile for the China Media Group shows that the NAICS code is 541870 for Advertising Material Distribution Services.
- First ResearchFirst, click "browse industry profiles" to see if your industry is covered. If so, you've got a whole menu of helpful information: forecast, issues, challenges. Don't miss the "Industry Drivers" and "Industry Indicators" and "Web Links" boxes on the bottom right.
- IBISWorldSearch for an industry or browse from the available list. Each industry overview includes supply chain information, key economic drivers, an industry outlook, major companies and key statistics.