New technology is revolutionizing broadcasting markets. As the cost of bandwidth processing and delivery fall, information-intensive services that once bore little economic relationship to each other are now increasingly related as substitutes or complements. Television, newspapers, telecoms and the internet compete ever more fiercely for audience attention. At the same time, digital encoding makes it possible to charge prices for content that had previously been broadcast for free. This is creating new markets where none existed before. How should public policy respond? Will competition lead to better services, higher quality and more consumer choice - or to a proliferation of low-quality channels? Will it lead to dominance of the market by a few powerful media conglomerates? Using the insights of modern microeconomics, this book provides a state-of-the-art analysis of these and other issues by investigating the power of regulation to shape and control broadcasting markets.
Contents
Part I. Introduction: 1. The future of broadcasting regulation Jürgen von Hagen and Paul Seabright; 2. Technological and regulatory developments in broadcasting: an overview Colin Rowat; Part II. Questions of Principle in Broadcasting Regulation: 3. Competition and market power in broadcasting: where are the rents? Paul Seabright and Helen Weeds; 4. Public service broadcasting and digitalisation Mark Armstrong and Helen Weeds; 5. Regulation for pluralism in broadcasting markets Michele Polo; 6. Regulation of advertising in broadcasting Simon Anderson; 7. Market definition in media markets: policy implications of indirect network externalities Elena Argentesi and Marc Ivaldi; Part III. Institutional Approaches in Various Jurisdictions: 8. Policy-making and policy trade-offs: competition, diversity, and localism and the Federal Communications Commission Peter Alexander and Keith Brown; 9. The European Union Pierre Bugues and Valérie Rabassa; 10. Competition versus sector-specific regulation in various European countries Einar Hope; Index.
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