Within the context of a master seminar ("Organisations- und Akteursforschung") we describe the economic structures and media systems in four countries: Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany. Additionally, we conduct a survey among advertising managers in these countries in order to get deeper insights into ad spending decisions. Our objective is to link the findings on the macro (structural analysis) and meso level (survey) to learn more about the interaction of different influencing factors on the revenues of advertising media.