The Economic Regulation of Broadcasting Markets: Evolving Technology and Challenges for Policy

Description

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.

Paul Seabright is Professor of Economics at the University of Toulouse. Jurgen von Hagen is director of the Center for European Integration Studies in Bonn.

Advance praise: 'These essays are indispensable to anyone involved in either broadcasting policy or media strategy. They offer a rigorous analysis of the issues facing regulators and politicians in the face of the rapid evolution of both the technologies and the shape of broadcasting markets, and they set out the empirical evidence available now as well as highlighting some important research gaps. The book provides a truly impressive overview of our state of knowledge on the regulation of this important and sensitive industry.' Diane Coyle, Member of the Competition Commission and Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester 'This book provides an extensive survey of a number of topics relating to the broadcasting industry. On the empirical side, it contains comparative evidence on the EU, US and OECD countries, econometrics of mergers, technological issues. On a more theoretical side, it covers issues related to regulation and competition policy and their respective roles, vertical integration problem, and the difficult problem of two-sided market issues in the media industry. It is a major contribution to the analysis of a field that has become ever more important because of the convergence between media and telecommunication sectors. Both researchers and practitioners should read these analyses carefully.' Anne Perrot, Vice-President, French Competition Council