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Changing Sports/Media Complex and Its Impact on the Regulatory Process of the Broadcasting Sector

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Abstract

Given that access to information seems unlimited in the digital landscape, some authors argue that broadcasting regulation is something from the past. According to them, spectrum scarcity and one-way selection of information at the level of broadcasters can no longer be upheld in the future as the premise for the regulation of the media sector. Moreover, they even proposed to leave the regulation of the broadcasting market to competition law. However, this should be nuanced, because the empowerment of the viewer and the change in behaviour is overestimated. Given that the replacement of old media by new media is not always followed immediately by the substitution of old media practices by new media habits, it would be too dangerous to conclude that the raison d’être of media regulation has disappeared.

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