In contrast to the last three years, some of the big media companies had great years as far as their stock prices go.
Disney (DIS), with Bob Iger seeming to make the right move at the right time every time, was rewarded with an increase of 44.3% in its stock. News Corp. (NWS) followed with a 34.7% increase and Time Warner (TWX) was next with 26.3%. Even spinoff CBS (CBS) brought in a healthy 22.3% gain.
Sony Corp. (SNE) and Viacom (VIA) had poor years with a 5.5% and 2.5% gain for the companies.
In contrast, even Google (GOOG) was able to only garner an 11% increase in its price, with Yahoo (YHOO) plunging a huge 35.3% for the year.
Charter Communications Inc., finished up by 148.4%, DirecTV (DTV) was up by 81.9% and Marvel Entertainment (MVL) had a strong 65.1 percent increase for the year.
While it will be hard to duplicate this again across this many companies, I still think that Disney especially has positioned themselves great for the future.
Any type of radio will continue to struggle a lot. XM Satellite (XMSR) may have the best chance in the whole field to do fairly well. Sirius (SIRI) is in serious trouble.
With the pounding the old media industry has been taking, I guess they can at least breath easy over last year and enjoy the ride. It may be a long time before we see this happen again.
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