This book seeks to investigate ‘platform power’ in the multi-platform era and unravels the evolution of power structures in the TV industry as a result of platformisation. Multiple TV platforms and modes of distribution are competing–not necessarily in a zero-sum game–to control the market. In the volume, the contributors work to extend established ‘platform theory’ to the TV industry, which has become increasingly organised as a platform economy. The book helps to understand how platform power arises in the industry, how it destabilises international relations, and how it is used in the global media value chain. Platform Power and Policy in Transforming Television Markets contributes to the growing field of media industry studies, and draws on scholarly work in communication, political economy and public policy whilst providing a deeper insight into the transformation of the TV industry from an economic, political and consumer level. Avoiding a merely legal analysis from a technology-driven perspective, the book provides a critical analysis of the dominant modes of power within the evolving structures of the global TV value chain.

The authors address claims that vertical ownership ties reduce programming diversity, restrict entry of competitors to cable, or have other socially undesirable effects

Offering an analysis of the most pressing issues relating to the interaction between market integration and the provision of public services in the EU, this book addresses the underlying systemic issues, confronting core tensions at the heart of the EU's social and economic policy.

New technology is revolutionizing broadcasting markets. As the cost of bandwidth processing and delivery fall, information-intensive services that once bore little economic relationship to each other are now increasingly related as substitutes or complements. Television, newspapers, telecoms and the internet compete ever more fiercely for audience attention. At the same time, digital encoding makes it possible to charge prices for content that had previously been broadcast for free. This is creating new markets where none existed before. How should public policy respond? Will competition lead to better services, higher quality and more consumer choice - or to a proliferation of low-quality channels? Will it lead to dominance of the market by a few powerful media conglomerates? Using the insights of modern microeconomics, this book provides a state-of-the-art analysis of these and other issues by investigating the power of regulation to shape and control broadcasting markets.

Collins focuses on the impact of new television technologies, national policies for television, the effects of internationalisation, television news and documentaries and the likely development of media studies.