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

by Edited by Paul Seabright , Jürgen von Hagen

• ISBN13: 9780521874052
• ISBN10: 052187405X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-05-21
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

List of figures	p. vii
List of tables	p. viii
List of boxes	p. ix
Notes on contributors	p. x
Introduction
Introduction: the future of economic regulation in broadcasting markets	p. 3
Technological and regulatory developments in broadcasting: an overview	p. 11
Questions of principle in broadcasting regulation
Competition and market power in broadcasting: where are the rents?	p. 47
Public service broadcasting in the digital world	p. 81
Regulation for pluralism in media markets	p. 150
Regulation of television advertising	p. 189
Market definition in printed media industries: theory, practice and lessons for broadcasting	p. 225
Institutional approaches in various jurisdictions
Policymaking and policy trade-offs: broadcast media regulation in the United States	p. 255
The European Union	p. 280
Competition policy and sector-specific economic media regulation: and never the twain shall meet?	p. 310
Index	p. 344
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.