Competition in the media sector - how long can the future be delayed?

Purpose - To demonstrate that the media sector is moving towards a new organization of the sector. Inevitably a larger role will fall to competition law and competition law considerations.Design methodology approach - The paper identifies major trends and demonstrates evolving competition principles...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Info (Cambridge, England) England), 2005, Vol.7 (5), p.52-60
Main Author: Ungerer, Herbert
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Competition
Competition policy
Competitive strategy
Digital broadcasting
Digital communication systems
Digital transmission
Digital video recorders
Digitization
EU directives
European Union
Households
Information media
Internet
Media
Regulation
Studies
Trends
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Description
Summary:Purpose - To demonstrate that the media sector is moving towards a new organization of the sector. Inevitably a larger role will fall to competition law and competition law considerations.Design methodology approach - The paper identifies major trends and demonstrates evolving competition principles in the European Union (EU) media sector by discussing selected recent EU case decisions.Findings - Recent cases in the application of EU competition rules in the European media sector evolve around three central themes, all of them essential for moving the sector forward into the transition towards the new media world: unbundling of content and platform, in order to open the market for newcomers; allowing for restructuring, subject to sufficient market opening; and fair competition between public and private broadcasting, in order to prevent the strangling effects that public subsidies can have, while safeguarding public value in the sector.Originality value - The application of EU competition rules - merger control, antitrust, state aid control - is a major strand of EU policies in addressing the transition and digital switchover in the European media sector. Any valid research and policy making in the sector will have to take this into account and the paper draws attention to this.
ISSN:1463-6697
2398-5038
2398-5046
DOI:10.1108/14636690510618284