• by Wayne Friedman , November 12, 2015

Media deals and values slowed down in a big way in the third quarter, which occurred during media companies’ sharp fall in their stock market valuations.

Deal volume dropped 70% to $23 billion from $76 billion in the second quarter of this year, according to a PwC entertainment/media report.

The number of deals fell 6% to 207 in the period, versus 221 in the second quarter. A year ago, in the third quarter of 2014, there were 204 deals. There were only three megadeals during the period -- more than $1 billion in value -- versus seven in the second quarter. Total value of third-quarter deals was $16.4 billion.

In advertising/marketing, there were 58 deals in the third quarter and $427 million in deal value -- down from $1.2 billion in the second quarter. Internet/information’s 30 deals had a value of $1.2 billion, sharply off from $6.3 billion; publishing’s 43 deals had a value at $1.03 billion, down from $1.4 billion; and communications’ 26 deals came in at $2.2 billion from $3.0 billion.

The biggest deals in the period included European telecommunications’ Altice $9.9 billion deal for Cablevision Systems Corp; Nexstar Broadcasting Group's $4.1 billion for Media General (as well as Meredith Corp.'s earlier announced $2.3 billion deal for Media General).

By way of comparison, there was $71.3 billion worth of these high value deals in the second quarter, with $34.4 billion in the first quarter of 2015.

In the media space, the number of deals in the subcategories -- advertising/marketing, Internet/information, communications, and publishing -- produced roughly the same number of deals. But deal value dropped.

In early August, media stocks sharply fell because of concerns over consumers cutting back on their TV/video services sold by traditional pay TV providers.