Media Economics

1
Media Economics

• The Global Marketplace

2
The beginnings of Mass Media

• Urbanization
• Mass Production Industrialization
• Education Literacy

3
Free Market v. Government Controls

• Monopoly
• Oligopoly
• Limited Competition

4
Monopoly

• No competition
• ATT up through the 1980s
• Microsoft?

5
Oligopoly

• Limited competition
• Feature films
• Commercial Recording

6
Limited Competition

• Many producers and sellers but only a few
  differentiable products within a particular
  category.
• Radio Broadcasting

7
Media Specialization

• Audience Fragmentation
• Increased emphasis on audience and market
  research
• The business of broadcasting Selling audiences
  to advertisers.

8
Collecting the Revenues

• Direct Payment Books, Cable Television, CDs,
  etc.
• Indirect Payment (Advertiser Supported)
  Television, Radio, Daily Newspapers, Consumer
  Magazines

9
The Shift to Information Economy

• More than 50 of the U.S. economy based on
  creation, packaging and selling information, than
  on manufacturing.

10
Economies of Scale

• Higher production output lowers cost.
• Except where oligopolies keep prices artificially
  inflated.
• In general, economies of scale allow the U.S. to
  dominate the worlds media marketplace.

11
De-Regulation

• Preceded by RE-regulation.
• Brought about by cuts in government spending in
  the late 1970s.
• The Free Market philosophy.
• Technological Darwinism.

12
Free Market and Technological Diffusion

• The consumer will determine the better mousetrap.
• The government will not impose a standard.
• The result is the DCC, the Betamax, etc.
• Often this is the technology we export to the
  have-nots.

13
Two views of media consolidation

• Proliferation versus diversity.
• The same dichotomy extends to views of
  globalization.
• Our economy suffers from job loss, but we want
  to buy 25 DVD players.

14
Synergy

• Cross-promotions. (e.g. Disney)
• Seagrams promotes concerts for artists on
  Universal labels.
• Product placement in television, films, video
  games, sports events.

15
What happens when the product is news?

• Viewing news as a commodity
• Defining news
• Packaging news
• Selling news

16
Cultural Imperialism

• Viewed as the imposition of American culture
  and values on other (developing) nations.
• Global Village or Cultural Homogenization?
• Hegemony.

17
Capitalism vDemocracy

• Are they the same?
• What are the similarities? Differences?
• Criticisms of capitalism.

18
http//www.cjr.org/tools/owners/
http//www.consumersunion.org/i/Telecom___Utilitie
s/