The objective of this article is twofold. First, it seeks to identify and classify the most likely sources of potential loss for media and entertainment businesses. Adopting the World Bank’s definition of risk as a ‘possibility of loss’ and opportunity as the ‘upside of risk’, this article constructs a typology of risks that are categorized in seven types: catastrophic, financial, regulatory, technological, intellectual property (IP) related, value chain related and commercial. Combining this typology with a review of the most common risk mitigation strategies, this article demonstrates that risk management is central to the way media firms operate and has a determining influence on their output. Risk analysis, therefore, offers us a better understanding of corporate strategies in the media and entertainment industries both in terms of management and content.
In a context of globalization of media landscape where big players provide content worldwide, broadcasters that cover topics related to local areas are still necessary. Due to the limitation of licenses in conventional television (such as digital terrestrial television), the denial of distribution platforms to local channels (as is the case of Movistar+ in Spain) and the aim of local channels to be in the digital sphere, one can find many local stations broadcasting online. The goal of this article is to point out the phenomenon of Internet television at the local level, and to explain the opportunity to regulate them like local television channels. The Catalan case, in Spain, will be presented as a paradigmatic example with a long tradition of local television, where more than twenty broadcasters turn to Internet due to the lack of entry barriers to online television market.
Commercial communications constitute one of the policy areas where differences between traditional broadcasting media and over-the-top (017) subscription video on-demand services (SVODs) emerge more dramatically. This article focuses on the exemplary case of global market leader Netflix to examine how this US-born company has been adjusting to EU regulation on product placement (PP) identification. Moreover, the article presents and discusses some of the criticisms that were raised with regard to Netflix's supposed violation of the ban on the placement of tobacco products. The article argues that Netflix still fails to adequately disclose PP to its viewers. The article also advances a proposal for co-regulation on these matters, in light of the upcoming revised version of the EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD). An effective regulation of PP in OTT SVOD programmes is essential because watching Internet-based television is ever more a mainstream habit, particularly among young demographics, and because PP is a key revenue source for ad-free services like Netflix.
Based on the current keyword ‘sharing economy’, this article applies the notion of sharing to on-going changes in the TV audience market. Through in-depth interviews with TV providers and the analysis of previous research, it points to sharing activities by TV audiences as well as TV providers that represent forms of collaborative production and collaborative consumption. In detail, the article distinguishes three types of sharing activities in the audience market: distribution, interaction and audience circulation. The article emphasizes the value creation in the TV audience market through sharing activities by audiences and proposes an ‘activity net of value creation’ in the TV audience market to illustrate such dynamics.
In an unstable and fragmented global media environment, beset by an economic crisis and technological changes, the future of traditional television seems bleak and uncertain. The age of digitalization brought a series of challenges for nonlinear broadcast entities, underlining a pressing need for content reassessment and market restructuring. This study examines the competitiveness of traditional television in contrast to other media (new and traditional), as well as the future of television in a period when digital media seem to dominate the sociopolitical-economic environment, while traditional media seem to be in their death throes. The primary aim of this study is to investigate whether post-broadcast television can preserve its audience and survive in an era beyond digitalization. Cyprus was selected as a case study for this research since, after 2013, the country suffered an unprecedented economic and banking crisis that led to significant changes within the country's media sector and especially television.
The term ‘binge watching’ is common in popular media and is one of several new ways of TV viewing that capitalizes on the wide availability of digital video and streaming services. However, the term lacks clear conceptualization, and the underlying motivations associated with it remain under-explored. Results from eleven focus groups of university students in the United States suggest binge watching is characterized as viewing suspenseful dramatic, narrative content for a considerable amount of time: often more than three or four hours. Analyses revealed four emergent motivations that contribute to individuals binge watching: (1) anticipation of what was coming next – facilitated by both content and technology features, (2) management of moods and excitement/ arousal, (3) procrastination and escapism, (4) social goals – related to both co-viewing, discussing content with others and identification with characters. Implications and future directions for research are discussed.
This article re-evaluates Australia's transition to digital television. Earlier analysis in this journal, conducted after about a third of the vacated digital dividend spectrum remained unsold following an auction in 2013, found the whole policy had resulted in a net cost to government revenues. After a further auction in 2017 where the remaining spectrum was sold at much higher prices (A$/MHz/pop), this article repeats the evaluation. It finds that digital switchover, now virtually complete, has produced a significant net increase in government revenues. Other conclusions from the original article about the complexity and difficulty of ex ante cost-benefit analysis, the influence of industry structure, and the capacity of government to plan and complete a large spectrum re-farming project, despite contested and shifting ideas about the purpose of the whole project, are confirmed and emphasized.
Data analysis is steadily becoming more central to management decision-making in media organizations across the globe. The reliance of subscription video on demand (SVoD) services, such as Netflix, on data analytics to underpin decisions about new content investment is well-established. However, what are the key opportunities and challenges facing the rest of the television industry? This article examines how data analysis is facilitating improved methods of personalization and more effective intelligence about the relative appeal of content for differing audience segments. But growing reliance on big data also raises a number of critical public interest questions. This article highlights how data is now a key source of competitive advantage in the television industry and a resource that can be monopolized. It argues that media policy-making needs to pay more attention to the emergence and implications of asymmetries of power in relation to ownership and use of data in managerial decision-making.
The technology breakthrough in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, 3D printing, etc. pose significant challenges to the contemporary media (traditional and social) and information ecosystem. Using PEST analysis, this article examines the political, economic, social and technological aspects of the demographic and literacy trends and disruptions in the media and communication ecosystem (based on digital practices in Bulgaria). The article concentrates on the political and regulatory commitment to fundamental values when developing new trajectories in the domains of technology, business and governance; the transformation of the business models for meeting customers’ expectations for personalized interaction at all points of their consumer experience; the scaling up of citizen-centred technologies as phenomenal opportunities for human progress, which also create serious societal challenges; and the impact of technological developments on society.
This article reviews the current European legislation and the Spanish government's plans for the implementation of the Second Digital Dividend in Spain. Its main objectives are to compare the spectrum optimization process in other European states and to analyse what are the technical, political, economic and social implications of the whole process for the Spanish audio-visual services and for the actors involved in the process.
