There were 838 media M&A deals in 2007, 32 percent more than in 2006, according to a new report from media investment bank Jordan Edmiston Group. Total dollar value of the deals hit $108 billion, 79 percent higher than last year.

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—Volume-wise, not surprisingly, the big gainer was online media, with total deal flow of 306 worth $11.88 billion, up 69.1 percent and 32.9 percent respectively. Note that these numbers reveal shrinking deal sizes. In ‘07, the average deal was worth 38.8, down 21 percent from last year’s $49.4 million. Also big was marketing and interactive services, with 249 deals worth $31.5 billion, up 76.6 percent and 80.8 percent.

—Newspaper publishing saw higher dollar volume—$13.8 billion over $10.3 billion—but most of this gain was due to the deals for Tribune and Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS). Stripping these out, deal activity slowed significantly: for the year there were only 45 newspaper deals, down from 74 in 2006. B2B publishing was another down area, with 38 deals worth $3.1 billion, down from 42 deals worth 6.0 billion. Consumer magazines on the other hand were up big, due to the sale of Dennis Publishing, and the announced Gemstar and Emap (LSE: EMA) deals.

Two other areas—database information services and educational and professional publishing—were much bigger due to specific deals, Thomson/Reuters (NSDQ: RTRSY) in the first and the sale of a unit at Harcourt in the latter category.

—Bottom line: The online space is quite active, and there’s no reason to think that deals flow will slow down. When you get out of that, deal activity is far lumpier, much more dependent on specific transactions..

Full numbers in the Release (.pdf)

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