Media Business Literacy in the Digital Age

The digital age is changing everything forever. Media is changing in many ways ranging from the way people screen it to the way it is operated as a business. Profitable mainstream media of yesterday is struggling to survive against disruptive innovation brought by new technologies and being challenged by giant technology companies such as Google and Facebook, which are forming a duopoly, especially in terms of digital advertising revenues. These conditions are forcing media managers to be more literate than ever. Although there is a definition for media literacy and business literacy, there is no definition for media business literacy yet. This study will try to make a definition of media business literacy, which should involve stakeholders, markets, products, customers, competitors, financial terminology, and financial statements. After this broad definition, the rest of the chapter will focus on the changing media industry structure providing an insight on some financial and numerical information that needs to be understood by everyone interested in media business.