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How Broadcasting Quotas Harm Program Diversity
Abstract and Figures
Broadcasting quotas of domestic contents are commonplace in developed countries. The core argument for them is to promote diversity by making more room for domestic content and hence foster a more diverse production. However, this intuitive reasoning ignores the trade-off between repetition (broadcasting more of the same) and new program diffusion. If each consumer cares only about a small fraction on the total contents of the program, a broadcaster confronted to a quota will find optimal to compensate for the reduction of foreign programming by increasing the number of diffusions of substitutable domestic programs. Total broadcasting time being limited, this will force the broadcaster to slash marginal (less popular) types of programming, whereby reducing program diversity. This mechanism applies both in a monopoly and an imperfectly competitive setting. It thus undermines one of the main rationales for quotas of domestic content.
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“Competitive duplication” is widespread in China’s broadcasting market due to fierce competition. To address this issue, the National Radio and Television Administration instituted the “Limited Entertainment Order” (LEO) in 2011 with the purpose of increasing the diversity of television programs. This study employs a Panel Threshold Model and data on 32 provincial TV stations between 2009 and 2014 to examine the effectiveness of the LEO on program diversity. The descriptive statistics reveal a temporary increase in program diversity immediately following implementation of the LEO, which drops quickly thereafter. The empirical findings suggest the policy has been ineffective in promoting the genres of programs offered by provincial broadcasters. In contrast, the individual fixed effects, rating share, and advertisement dependence of TV stations have significant effects on the level of program diversity.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2017v37n1p139
Translation plays a vital role in the current multilingual and multicultural society. It is a fundamental infrastructure of globalization, functioning as an essential tool for the circulation of information, knowledge, and culture. Although English can be considered a lingua franca in certain sectors of society, the role of translation has not lessened with its rise. In fact, translation is a strong indicator of the relationships established between countries: international translation flows depend on the (im)balances of power in the world. In this paper I analyse relevant data to ascertain the weight of works originally written in English and translated into Portuguese, resorting to the national reading plan (PNL). After briefly addressing the influence of geopolitics in the trade of cultural goods and describing the world system of translation, I analyse the list of 345 books suggested in the national reading plan for 12-15 year olds. Almost half of these books are translations; however, this does not imply that the list is sufficiently multicultural, quite on the contrary as it shows the dominance of books written in English. A lot more can be done to diversify the source languages and expose Portuguese young readers to a wider variety of cultures.
This paper constructs a model of the recorded music market to investigate the consequences of local content requirements in broadcasting for the “internationalization” of domestic music. It models the entry decisions of bands, the contracting decisions of record companies, the airplay decisions of radio stations and the radio listening and recording purchasing decisions of consumers. The paper shows that a local content quota leads, perversely, to the increased internationalization of domestic music. A quota that also requires increased broadcasting of “new” music yields an additional welfare loss but does nothing to a record company's incentives to sign up new bands.
Media industries are important drivers of popular culture. A large fraction of leisure time is devoted to radio, magazines, newspapers, the Internet, and television (the illustrative example henceforth). Most advertising expenditures are incurred for these media. They are also mainly supported by advertising revenue. Early work stressed possible market failures in program duplication and catering to the Lowest Common Denominator, indicating lack of cultural diversity and quality. The business model for most media industries is underscored by advertisers' demand to reach prospective customers. This business model has important implications for performance in the market since viewer sovereignty is indirect. Viewers are attracted by programming, though they dislike the ads it carries, and advertisers want viewers as potential consumers. The two sides are coordinated by broadcasters (or “platforms”) that choose ad levels and program types, and advertising finances the programming. Competition for viewers of the demographics most desired by advertisers implies that programming choices will be biased towards the tastes of those with such demographics. The ability to use subscription pricing may help improve performance by catering to the tastes of those otherwise under-represented, though higher full prices tend to favor broadcasters at the expense of viewers and advertisers. If advertising demand is weak, program equilibrium program selection may be too extreme as broadcasters strive to avoid ruinous subscription price competition, but strong advertising demand may lead to strong competition for viewers and hence minimum differentiation (“la pensée unique”). Markets (such as newspapers) with a high proportion of ad-lovers may be served only by monopoly due to a circulation spiral: advertisers want to place ads in the paper with most readers, but readers want to buy the paper with more ads.
The Long Tail: digital leverage for cultural diversity?
In 2004, the editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, Chris Anderson, first made the assumption that the internet was bringing together scattered markets for cultural products which had never hitherto been lucrative, due to their narrow market appeal. With sales of these products thus aggregated, he argued, they were now becoming profitable. Referred to as the Long Tail, this assumption proved persuasive and opened up new prospects for cultural-goods markets, promoting the idea that online sales could potentially increase cultural diversity. This article examines the initial research on the Long Tail assumption, drawing on the results of published academic works and two as-yet unpublished studies. The authors emphasize that, despite the appeal of this argument, the data only partially back up Chris Anderson’s assumption.
The press industry depends in a crucial way on the possibility of financing an important fraction of its activities by advertising receipts. We show that this induces the editors of newspapers to moderate, in several cases, the political message they display to their readers, compared with the political opinions they would have expressed otherwise. To this end, we consider a three-stage game in which editors select sequentially their political image, the price of their newspaper and the advertising tariff they oppose to the advertisers. The intuition of the result lies in the fact that editors have to sell tasteless political messages to their readers in order to sell a larger audience to the advertisers.
I. Criteria for the appraisal of workability, 195. — II. The one period model, 197. — III. The model over time, 207. — IV.
Relevance of the model to the market structure of the industry, 217. — V. Some suggestions for further analysis, 222.
The press industry depends in a crucial way on the possibility of financing an important fraction of its activities by advertising receipts. We show that this induces the editors of newspapers to moderate, in several cases, the political message they display to their readers, compared with the political opinions they would have expressed otherwise. To this end, we consider a three-stage game in which editors select sequentially their political image, the price of their newspaper and the advertising tariff they oppose to the advertisers. The intuition of the result lies in the fact that editors have to sell tasteless political messages to their readers in order to sell a larger audience to the advertisers.
This chapter considers economic issues and trends in the rock and roll industry, broadly defined. The analysis focuses on concert revenues, the main source of performers' income. Issues considered include: price measurement; concert price acceleration in the 1990s; the increased concentration of revenue among performers; reasons for the secondary ticket market; methods for ranking performers; copyright protection; and technological change.
We identify cultural goods as goods which are valued differently by consumers at home than by individuals abroad, and which are produced under scale economies. It is shown that restrictions on the trade of cultural goods can raise welfare in both recipient and source countries.
Cultural allegiances whether inherited, imposed or chosen, affect economic activity. Many of these cultural layers – ethnic background, religion, language, ideological orientation, and artistic interests – spill over national boundaries. Cultural ideas travel the world along many routes from the Silk Road to modern electronic networks. Historically, peripatetic artists, composers and writers have responded to shifting patronage and market opportunities. More recently, firms in the cultural industries develop and produce content and distribute it as widely as the market will bear. Visual and performing arts and the cultural industries have both common and distinct international economic dimensions. In trade agreements, countries voluntarily limit their policy options in return for restrictions on the choices of the other member countries. Arguments for protection versus openness for cultural activities are more complex and nuanced than for other economic sectors because of a wide range of views on how international cultural policy affects individuals and the national culture. The inclusion of GATS and TRIPS in the WTO made the WTO a more important influence on international cultural policy than its GATT predecessor. UNESCO continues to play a complementary role. The Florence agreement (1950) encourages the free flow of cultural products and a convention addresses illicit trade in cultural property, a heritage issue. Currently, UNESCO is the focus of efforts to create a rules-based convention to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions, which is designed to either separate international cultural policy governance from the WTO or strengthen the bargaining position of cultural industry interests in WTO negotiations. These discussions take place in circumstances where there are serious shortcomings in the measurement of trade in cultural goods and services.
Introduction, 15.—The welfare criterion, 16.—Assumptions, 18.—Calculating program patterns, 21.—Counterexamples to Steiner's
result, 23.—Ownership structure, channel capacity, and program patterns, 26.—Consumer surplus and total surplus, 31.—Welfare
conclusions and policy implications, 35.
In the Colonel Blotto game, two players simultaneously distribute forces across n battlefields. Within each battlefield, the player that allocates the higher level of force wins. The payoff of the game is the proportion of wins on the individual battlefields. An equilibrium of the Colonel Blotto game is a pair of n-variate distributions. This paper characterizes the unique equilibrium payoffs for all (symmetric and asymmetric) configurations of the players’ aggregate levels of force, characterizes the complete set of equilibrium univariate marginal distributions for most of these configurations, and constructs entirely new and novel equilibrium n-variate distributions.