The purpose of this article is to analyze how competitive forces may influence the way media firms like TV channels raise revenue. A media firm can either be financed by advertising revenue, by direct payment from the viewers (or the readers, if we consider newspapers), or by both. We show that...

Equilibrium prices behave quite differently if consumers single-purchase (buy either Time Magazine or Newsweek) or if some consumers multi-purchase (buy both). Prices are strategic complements under single-purchase, and increase with magazine quality. In a multi-purchase regime prices are...

Many countries levy reduced-rate indirect taxes on newspapers, with proclaimed policy goals of stimulating investment in journalism and ensuring low newspaper prices. However, by taking into account the fact that the media industry operates in two-sided markets, we find the paradoxical result...

Empirical evidence suggests that people dislike ads in media products like TV programs. In such situations standard economic theory prescribes that the advertising volume can be optimally reduced by levying a tax on ads. However, making use of recent advances in the theory of Industrial...

This paper generalizes the frequently used Hotelling model for two-sided markets in order to determine the equilibrium market shares. We show that advertisement levels depend neither on the media price nor on the location of the media firm. An increase in advertising revenues does not change...

The TV industry is a two-sided market where both advertisers and viewers buy access to the programs offered by competing TV channels. Under the current market structure advertising prices are typically set by TV channels while viewer prices are set by distributors (e.g. cable operators). The...