The phenomenal growth of Google and Facebook as conduits of information and entertainment has devastated traditional media, whose share of advertising revenue is projected to decline even further. But anxiety over the scale of their market domination, scattergun approach to advertising and lack of responsibility has led to calls for greater regulation of the tech behemoths. The media industry calls it the "two giants problem". Or the "two elephants in the room". Or "the biggest threat to our industry". Grappling with the conversion of their traditional media assets to digital platforms, SA’s industry leaders cite a common problem: the overwhelming and growing dominance of the big two of social media, Facebook and Google.The problem is global. In the US, Google and Facebook together took 77% of online advertising spend last year, and their share is growing annually. Though the spend grew a significant 21.8% last year to reach US$72bn, an astounding 99% of this growth went to these tw...

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