IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/econjl/v130y2020i625p50-64..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Strategic Differentiation by Business Models: Free-To-Air and Pay-TV

Author

Listed:
  • Emilio Calvano
  • Michele Polo

Abstract

Broadcasting markets are marked by the coexistence of outlets with radically different business models, some offering content free of charge and relying on advertising, others charging for access and airing few ads. We develop a model with competing broadcasters that leads to endogenous differentiation in business models. Differentiation is not driven by the heterogeneity of agents as in classic works. Rather it relates to the 'two-sided' nature of these markets. A key driver is a strong form of strategic substitutability induced by natural properties of technology that allows advertisers to reach viewers.

Suggested Citation

  • Emilio Calvano & Michele Polo, 2020. "Strategic Differentiation by Business Models: Free-To-Air and Pay-TV," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(625), pages 50-64.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:130:y:2020:i:625:p:50-64.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ej/uez037
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Attila Ambrus & Emilio Calvano & Markus Reisinger, 2016. "Either or Both Competition: A "Two-Sided" Theory of Advertising with Overlapping Viewerships," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 189-222, August.
    2. Lapo Filistrucchi & Damien Geradin & Eric van Damme & Pauline Affeldt, 2014. "Market Definition In Two-Sided Markets: Theory And Practice," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 293-339.
    3. Claude Crampes & Carole Haritchabalet & Bruno Jullien, 2009. "Advertising, Competition And Entry In Media Industries," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 7-31, March.
    4. repec:hrv:faseco:4589709 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Bolt, Wilko & Tieman, Alexander F., 2008. "Heavily skewed pricing in two-sided markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 1250-1255, September.
    6. Avner Shaked & John Sutton, 1982. "Relaxing Price Competition Through Product Differentiation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(1), pages 3-13.
    7. Hans Jarle Kind & Tore Nilssen & Lars Sørgard, 2009. "Business Models for Media Firms: Does Competition Matter for How They Raise Revenue?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(6), pages 1112-1128, 11-12.
    8. Peitz, Martin & Valletti, Tommaso M., 2008. "Content and advertising in the media: Pay-tv versus free-to-air," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 949-965, July.
    9. Amir, Rabah & Garcia, Filomena & Knauff, Malgorzata, 2010. "Symmetry-breaking in two-player games via strategic substitutes and diagonal nonconcavity: A synthesis," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(5), pages 1968-1986, September.
    10. Attila Ambrus & Rossella Argenziano, 2009. "Asymmetric Networks in Two-Sided Markets," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 17-52, February.
    11. Simon P. Anderson & Stephen Coate, 2005. "Market Provision of Broadcasting: A Welfare Analysis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(4), pages 947-972.
    12. Dietl Helmut & Lang Markus & Lin Panlang, 2023. "The Effects of Introducing Advertising in Pay TV: A Model of Asymmetric Competition between Pay TV and Free TV," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 23(1), pages 291-326, January.
    13. Jean‐Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Two‐sided markets: a progress report," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 645-667, September.
    14. Schmalensee Richard, 2011. "Why is Platform Pricing Generally Highly Skewed?," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(4), pages 1-13, December.
    15. Susan Athey & Emilio Calvano & Joshua S. Gans, 2014. "The Impact of Consumer Multi-homing on Advertising Markets and Media Competition," CSEF Working Papers 379, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 27 Apr 2016.
    16. Mark Armstrong Author-Email: mark.armstrong@ucl.ac.uk Author-Workplace-Name: University College of London, 2006. "Competition in Two-Sided Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 668-691, Autumn.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Simon P. Anderson & Bruno Jullien, 2015. "The advertising-financed business model in two-sided media markets," Post-Print hal-02866192, HAL.
    2. Bruno Jullien & Alessandro Pavan & Marc Rysman, 2021. "Two-sided markets, pricing, and network effects," Post-Print hal-03828345, HAL.
    3. Jullien, Bruno & Sand-Zantman, Wilfried, 2021. "The Economics of Platforms: A Theory Guide for Competition Policy," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    4. Hemant K. Bhargava, 2022. "The Creator Economy: Managing Ecosystem Supply, Revenue Sharing, and Platform Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 5233-5251, July.
    5. Christian Bach & Robert Edwards & Christian Jaag, 2023. "Postal Platform Pricing with Limited Consumer Attention," Working Papers 202318, University of Liverpool, Department of Economics.
    6. Gregor Langus & Vilen Lipatov, 2022. "Value Creation by Ad-Funded Platforms," CESifo Working Paper Series 9525, CESifo.
    7. Federico Boffa & Lapo Filistrucchi, 2014. "Optimal Cartel Prices in Two-Sided Markets Access," Working Papers 14-19, NET Institute.
    8. Calvano, Emilio & Polo, Michele, 2021. "Market power, competition and innovation in digital markets: A survey," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    9. Shekhar, Shiva, 2020. "Zero Pricing Platform Competition," MPRA Paper 99364, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Attila Ambrus & Emilio Calvano & Markus Reisinger, 2016. "Either or Both Competition: A "Two-Sided" Theory of Advertising with Overlapping Viewerships," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 189-222, August.
    2. Charles Angelucci & Julia Cagé & Michael Sinkinson, 2024. "Media Competition and News Diets," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 62-102, May.
    3. Jullien, Bruno & Pavan, Alessandro & Rysman, Marc, 2021. "Two-sided Markets, Pricing, and Network Effects," TSE Working Papers 21-1238, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    4. Simon P. Anderson & Bruno Jullien, 2015. "The advertising-financed business model in two-sided media markets," Post-Print hal-02866192, HAL.
    5. Calvano, Emilio & Polo, Michele, 2021. "Market power, competition and innovation in digital markets: A survey," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    6. Song Lin, 2020. "Two-Sided Price Discrimination by Media Platforms," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(2), pages 317-338, March.
    7. Anna D'Annunzio, 2013. "Vertical Integration in Two-Sided Markets: Exclusive Provision and Program Quality," DIAG Technical Reports 2013-16, Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza".
    8. Maria Rosa Battaggion & Serena Marianna Drufuca, 2020. "Quality competition and entry: a media market case," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 1-36, June.
    9. Dietl, Helmut & Lang, Markus & Lin, Panlang, 2013. "Advertising pricing models in media markets: Lump-sum versus per-consumer charges," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 257-271.
    10. Soo Jin Kim & Pallavi Pal, 2021. "Quality Differentiation and Optimal Pricing Strategy in Multi-Sided Markets," CESifo Working Paper Series 9267, CESifo.
    11. Reisinger, Markus, 2012. "Platform competition for advertisers and users in media markets," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 243-252.
    12. Doh-Shin Jeon & Nikrooz Nasr, 2016. "News Aggregators and Competition among Newspapers on the Internet," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 91-114, November.
    13. Mark J. McCabe & Christopher M. Snyder, 2018. "Open Access as a Crude Solution to a Hold‐Up Problem in the Two‐Sided Market for Academic Journals," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 301-349, June.
    14. Charles Angelucci & Julia Cagé, 2019. "Newspapers in Times of Low Advertising Revenues," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 319-364, August.
    15. Simon P. Anderson & Joshua S. Gans, 2011. "Platform Siphoning: Ad-Avoidance and Media Content," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 1-34, November.
    16. Anderson, Simon P. & Peitz, Martin, 2020. "Media see-saws: Winners and losers in platform markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    17. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4ec86lkes59hv9tfv77ld1p5fr is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Anna D’Annunzio & Antonio Russo, 2020. "Ad Networks and Consumer Tracking," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(11), pages 5040-5058, November.
    19. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4edekc99or8n2bu86nu4ua8adl is not listed on IDEAS
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4edekc99or8n2bu86nu4ua8adl is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & Feng Zhu, 2009. "Strategies to Fight Ad-sponsored Rivals," Working Papers 09-09, NET Institute, revised Sep 2009.
    22. Maria Battaggion & Alessandro Vaglio, 2015. "Watchdogs, Platforms and Audience: An Economic Perspective on Media Markets," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 43(2), pages 209-228, June.
    23. Zennyo, Yusuke, 2020. "Freemium competition among ad-sponsored platforms," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:econjl:v:130:y:2020:i:625:p:50-64.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.