• by Wayne Friedman , October 1, 2018

Third-quarter merger-and-acquisition deals -- for all media, marketing and technology companies  -- was $55.9 billion, down from the third-quarter 2017 results of $58.5 billion, and lower than the second-quarter 2018 total of $73 billion.

According to investment banker Petsky Prunier, digital media-commerce deals led at $30.2 billion, followed by marketing technology with $11.1 billion and agency/marketing services at $6.7 billion.

Digital media-commerce deals produced the most transactions during the period -- 427, up 8% from the second quarter and 55% higher in terms of value at $30.2 billion.

Traditional media-and-acquisition deals were slower. Deals were down 10% compared with the second quarter of 2018, while value was down 15% to $5.9 billion.

For traditional media, there were 66 transactions, with 17 reported $5 billion in total value.

The biggest of these was Australian’s media Nine Entertainment purchase of TV production services company FairfaxMedia for $1.9 billion. Entertainment media deals for traditional media transactions accounted for more than one-third of those deals -- 23 -- of the segment’s total number.

Digital advertising deals grew more than 20% quarter-over-quarter to 51 deals, hitting $2.1 billion. Sixteen of those deals were valued at $1.2 billion. The segment’s value was down 60% from the second-quarter 2018.