• by Wayne Friedman , March 21, 2014

The most profitable media company last year is not one with an immediately recognizable brand name -- Liberty Media Corp.

Liberty Media rose to the top of the media heap largely because of its takeover of Sirius XM Holdings, posting an overall net income of $8.9 billion -- a nearly 540% rise from its $1.4 billion level in 2012, according to SNL Kagan. A year ago, Liberty sat in sixth place overall.

In somewhat similar vein, a change of financial fortunes helped 21st Century Fox, which became a separate publicly traded company, posting $7.3 billion. As part of News Corp. in 2012, Fox was at $1.4 billion number. Now a separate traded company as well, News Corp. -- representing print/newspapers assets -- is in 12th place, pulling in $547 million in net income for 2013.

Last year’s overall profitable winner -- Walt Disney Co. -- came in at third place with $6.6 billion in net income versus $6.2 million in 2012. Time Warner was next at $3.6 billion -- up from $2.9 billion.

Viacom was next in fifth place, at $2.4 billion; CBS was at $1.9 billion, in sixth place.

The biggest advertising/media agency group, Omnicom Group, came in seventh overall -- at $1.11 billion. Interpublic Group was the next ad/media agency at $288.9 million, at 16th place.

Discovery Communications came in at eighth place with $1.08 billion. Discovery grew 14% in net profits over 2012, when it was in ninth place.

Nielsen Holdings NV was next -- in ninth place, for 2013 at $736 million, versus $272 million in 2012. Scripps Networks Interactive completed the top 10 list with $683 million, down 20% from its $850 million take in 2012.

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