TikTok Math: Oracle Just Bought More Daily Attention Than Fox, CNN, and the NYT Combined
And that $14 billion was a bargain
For nearly half a decade, Washington has been circling TikTok.
In 2020, Trump threatened to ban the app outright.
In 2024, Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) — a divest-or-ban ultimatum aimed squarely at TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance.
The vote wasn’t close, and it wasn’t partisan.
PAFACA passed with overwhelming majorities in both the House (on March 13, 2024) and the Senate (on April 23, 2024).
It was signed into law by President Biden on April 24, 2024.
And since April 24, 2024, TikTok influencers, mainstream outlets, and social platforms have been reporting that “the TikTok ban is actually happening” or “the TikTok sale is on/off.”
This month (September 2025), the standoff ended: Oracle and a group of U.S. investors bought control of TikTok’s U.S. operations for $14 billion.
The headlines said “Trump saves TikTok” or “national security deal.”
That’s not what just happened.
Why TikTok Was Targeted
TikTok is not just another app. It was forced into this sale because of three risks no other major platform combines:
Privacy overreach – TikTok collects location data, browsing history, and even how you type when using its in-app browser. That looks uncomfortably close to keylogging (aka screen recording you as you type ANYTHING on your phone - not just on the TikTok app).
Foreign leverage – ByteDance is a Chinese company. Under Chinese law, it can be compelled to share data with the state. That possibility alone was enough to make Washington nervous.
Algorithmic influence – TikTok’s “For You” feed is the most powerful content engine in the world. It decides what 170 million Americans see every day. That means it can invisibly amplify or suppress narratives.
Facebook tracks you. YouTube addicts you.
But only TikTok added the risk of direct foreign government leverage.
That’s why Washington forced a sale.
The Reach Oracle Just Captured
Here’s the scale Oracle now controls:
170 million Americans use TikTok.
The average user spends about 58 minutes per day on it.
57% of U.S. teens are daily users, with especially heavy use among Black and Hispanic teens.
This isn’t just “social media.” It’s prime-time television, radio, the town square, and the high school lunch table rolled into one feed.
The Price Tag: $14 Billion
Oracle and its partners (Silver Lake, MGX) paid $14 billion for TikTok’s U.S. operations. ByteDance keeps a minority stake.
$14B sounds big. But in media terms, it’s cheap. Oracle didn’t just buy an app. It bought the most concentrated stream of youth attention in America.
What That Influence Would Cost the Old Way
Let’s translate Oracle’s deal into advertising math.
TikTok reaches 170 million Americans daily.
To show five ads per day to each of them, you’d need 850 million ads every day.
That’s 25 billion ads per month.
On TikTok, showing ads at that scale costs about $150 million per month. Multiply by 12 months, and you’re at nearly $2 billion every year.
Double it to ten ads per person per day, and you’re spending over $3.5 billion annually.
That’s the rental model. Oracle didn’t rent. It bought the building.
And to put that in perspective: the most expensive ad stage in America is the Super Bowl.
One 30-second commercial costs about $8 million.
It reaches about 120 million viewers — but only once.
TikTok reaches a Super Bowl-sized audience every single day, and holds them for nearly an hour.
That’s the difference between paying for one stadium shout and owning the stadium itself.
TikTok vs. the “Serious Media”
Now compare TikTok to the institutions that still define “mainstream media”:
Fox News primetime: about 2 million nightly viewers, for about an hour each → 120 million minutes of attention per day.
New York Times online: about 90 million monthly visitors, but only 2 minutes per visit → 6 million minutes per day.
All top 50 U.S. newspapers combined: tens of millions of minutes per day.
TikTok: nearly 10 billion minutes of attention every day in the U.S.
That’s two orders of magnitude more attention than any single outlet. And it skews young.
Who Owns “The Media” (and Now, TikTok)
American media ownership is concentrated in dynasties and conglomerates:
Murdoch family – Fox News, Wall Street Journal
Warner Bros. Discovery – CNN
Comcast – NBC, MSNBC
Disney – ABC, ESPN
Paramount (Redstone family) – CBS
Sulzberger family – New York Times
These are the institutions that have defined “media power” for decades.
Now add Larry Ellison. Except he didn’t buy a cable network or a newspaper. He bought the feed that makes all of them look small.
And here’s another connection: most of these conglomerates share the same large institutional investors — Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street. They don’t coordinate editorial, but capital ties them together. Oracle now joins that club, with a far more powerful property.
The Other Oracle Moves That Matter
This isn’t Ellison’s only power grab. At the very moment he was buying TikTok, Oracle was also striking some of the biggest infrastructure deals in tech history:
A $30 billion annual deal to provide cloud capacity to OpenAI.
A partnership with OpenAI and SoftBank to build five new AI data centers under the $500 billion “Stargate” project.
An $18 billion bond raise to fund data center expansion.
A leadership shift, with Oracle splitting the CEO role into two to emphasize cloud and AI.
Ellison isn’t just buying the screen time — he’s buying the servers behind it.
And the impact is visible. Oracle’s stock surge on these moves pushed Larry Ellison past Elon Musk to become the richest person on earth. The symbolism matters: Musk spent $44B to buy Twitter/X and make himself a media power. Ellison just spent $14B to buy TikTok’s U.S. feed — and got more daily attention for one-third the price.
So Oracle didn’t just buy a media empire. It’s also building the compute backbone for the AI systems that shape what people see, hear, and read next.
Media + compute is not coincidence. It’s strategy.
Was $14B Cheap or Expensive?
At today’s ad prices, TikTok’s U.S. reach would cost $2–4 billion a year to rent. Oracle bought it for about the cost of four to eight years of ad spend. After that, it’s essentially free.
For comparison: $14B might buy you a struggling newspaper chain or a fading cable network. Those audiences are older, shrinking, and fragmented. TikTok’s audience is young, growing, and locked in for nearly an hour every day.
Ellison didn’t just buy an app. He bought more daily attention than Fox, CNN, NBC, and the New York Times combined — for less than Paramount is worth.
🧠 Bottom Line
The headlines say “Trump saves TikTok.”
The truth is simpler: Oracle just bought America’s attention span at a clearance price.
For $14B, Ellison purchased more daily influence than Fox, CNN, NBC, and the New York Times combined. At advertising rates, that much reach would cost billions every single year to rent. Now Oracle owns it outright.
It’s a reminder that influence isn’t abstract. It has a price tag. It can be bought.
Next time you open TikTok, remember: you’re not just scrolling. You’re inside the cheapest $14 billion deal for influence in history.
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