IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_11356.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Media Consolidation

Author

Listed:
  • Gregory J. Martin
  • Nicola Mastrorocco
  • Joshua McCrain
  • Arianna Ornaghi

Abstract

Recent decades have seen major changes to the local media environment in the United States, with the absorption of many formerly independent local TV stations into conglomerates. Using a comprehensive dataset of acquisitions, we examine the effects of ownership by the three largest television conglomerates on local news advertising, content, and viewership. Conglomerate owners consistently increase advertising duration during local newscasts. We find large effects on stations’ coverage of local events and local politics, but the direction of these effects varies across owners. Despite these changes, viewer responses are minimal. We conclude by investigating downstream consequences on viewers’ political knowledge.

Suggested Citation

  • Gregory J. Martin & Nicola Mastrorocco & Joshua McCrain & Arianna Ornaghi, 2024. "Media Consolidation," CESifo Working Paper Series 11356, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11356
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp11356.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anna Kerkhof, 2024. "Advertising and Content Differentiation: Evidence from YouTube," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(663), pages 2912-2950.
    2. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro & Frank Yang & Ali Yurukoglu, 2024. "Pricing Power in Advertising Markets: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(2), pages 500-533, February.
    3. Brian Knight & Ana Tribin, 2019. "The Limits of Propaganda: Evidence from Chavez’s Venezuela," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 567-605.
    4. Steven T. Berry & Joel Waldfogel, 2001. "Do Mergers Increase Product Variety? Evidence from Radio Broadcasting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(3), pages 1009-1025.
    5. Andrew Sweeting, 2010. "The effects of mergers on product positioning: evidence from the music radio industry," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(2), pages 372-397, June.
    6. Guy Rolnik & Julia Cagé & Joshua Gans & Ellen Goodman & Brian Knight & Andrea Prat & Anya Schiffrin, 2019. "Protecting Journalism in the Age of Digital Platforms," Working Papers hal-03947806, HAL.
    7. Dertouzos, James N & Trautman, William B, 1990. "Economic Effects of Media Concentration: Estimates from a Model of the Newspaper Firm," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 1-14, September.
    8. Huber, Gregory A. & Tucker, Patrick D., 2024. "House Members on the News: Local Television News Coverage of Incumbents," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(2), pages 503-513, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Torben Stühmeier, 2019. "Media market concentration and pluralism," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 247-259, April.
    2. Christos Genakos & Andreas Lamprinidis & James Walker, 2023. "Evaluating merger effects," CEP Discussion Papers dp1921, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Enghin Atalay & Alan Sorensen & Christopher Sullivan & Wanjia Zhu, 2024. "Product Repositioning by Merging Firms," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 868-908, June.
    4. A. Yeşim Orhun & Sriram Venkataraman & Pradeep K. Chintagunta, 2016. "Impact of Competition on Product Decisions: Movie Choices of Exhibitors," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(1), pages 73-92, January.
    5. Mitsukuni Nishida, 2015. "Estimating a Model of Strategic Network Choice: The Convenience-Store Industry in Okinawa," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(1), pages 20-38, January.
    6. Felix Montag, 2023. "Mergers, Foreign Competition, and Jobs: Evidence from the U.S. Appliance Industry," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 378, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    7. Steven Berry & Alon Eizenberg & Joel Waldfogel, 2016. "Optimal product variety in radio markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 47(3), pages 463-497, August.
    8. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro & Michael Sinkinson, 2014. "Competition and Ideological Diversity: Historical Evidence from US Newspapers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3073-3114, October.
    9. Argentesi, Elena & Buccirossi, Paolo & Cervone, Roberto & Duso, Tomaso & Marrazzo, Alessia, 2021. "The effect of mergers on variety in grocery retailing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    10. Meilin MA & Ralph Bernd Siebert, 2024. "The Impact of Private Label Introduction on Assortment, Prices, and Profits of Retailers," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(1), pages 356-389, March.
    11. Verboven, Frank & Bourreau, Marc & Sun, Yutec, 2018. "Market Entry, Fighting Brands and Tacit Collusion: The Case of the French Mobile Telecommunications Market," CEPR Discussion Papers 12866, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Elena Argentesi & Paolo Buccirossi & Roberto Cervone & Tomaso Duso & Alessia Marrazzo, 2018. "Price or Variety? An Evaluation of Mergers Effects in Grocery Retailing," CESifo Working Paper Series 7035, CESifo.
    13. Frijters Paul & Velamuri Malathi, 2010. "Is the Internet Bad News? The Online News Era and the Market for High-Quality News," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 1-33, June.
    14. Argentesi, Elena & Buccirossi, Paolo & Cervone, Roberto & Duso, Tomaso & Marrazzo, Alessia, 2021. "The effect of mergers on variety in grocery retailing," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 79, pages 1-19.
    15. Kurt R. Brekke & Luigi Siciliani & Odd Rune Straume, 2017. "Horizontal mergers and product quality," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(4), pages 1063-1103, November.
    16. Rennhoff, Adam D. & Wilbur, Kenneth C., 2014. "Market-based measures of viewpoint diversity," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 1-11.
    17. Justin P. Johnson & Andrew Rhodes, 2021. "Multiproduct mergers and quality competition," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(3), pages 633-661, September.
    18. Kuehn, Joseph & Lampe, Ryan, 2023. "Competition and product composition: Evidence from hollywood," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    19. Montag, Felix, 2022. "Mergers, Foreign Entry, and Jobs: Evidence from the U.S. Appliance Industry," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 2207, CEPREMAP.
    20. Haizhen Lin & Ian M. McCarthy, 2023. "Multimarket Contact in Health Insurance: Evidence from Medicare Advantage," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(1), pages 212-255, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    local news; consolidation; media;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • P00 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - General - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_11356. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.