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Understanding Media Economics
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Understanding Media Economics

Second Edition


April 2013 | 232 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
"Expertly synthesizes economic theory and contemporary cases to both explain the structure of the contemporary media industry and shed insight on the significant challenges and controversies confronting the sector."
- Lucy Küng, Oxford University and Jonkoping University

"A wide-ranging, accessible introduction to media economics and their application to a broad range of media topics from advertising and business models to copyright, audience demand and public policy."
- Chris Bilton, University of Warwick

"An excellent textbook on media economics, which takes into account the full complexity of the subject matter in the context of structural, technological and creative transformations that characterise digital media."
- Milan Todorovic, London Metropolitan University


With the rapidly evolving digital media landscape, this second and completely revised edition of Understanding Media Economics moves beyond a sector-specific approach to media analysis, and instead focuses on the issues and imperatives that are now central to how economic forces impact on the media industries.

Exploring themes such as innovation, digital multi-platform developments, the emerging importance of networks, branding and segmentation of market demand, strategies of risk-spreading, maximizing value within content, intermediation and rights management, corporate expansion and advertising, this book addresses and explains the key pressing questions and issues that are transforming contemporary media industries and markets.

Gillian Doyle makes the economics of the media fascinating, compelling and easy to understand. This is essential reading for students of media economics, media management, media policy and courses across the cultural and creative industries.

 
Chapter 1: Introduction
What Is Media Economics about?

 
Macroeconomics and Microeconomics

 
The Firm in Economic Theory

 
Competitive Market Structures

 
Market Structure and Behaviour

 
What Is So Special About Economics of the Media?

 
Key Economic Characteristics of the Media

 
Economies of Scale

 
Economies of Scope

 
Changing Technology

 
 
Chapter 2: Convergence and Multi-Platform
The Vertical Supply Chain

 
Changing Market Structures and Boundaries

 
Digital Convergence

 
Technological Change, Innovation and Creative Destruction

 
Multi-Platform

 
A New Cornucopia?

 
 
Chapter 3: Corporate Growth and Concentration Strategies
Strategic Responses to Digitization

 
Managerial Theories

 
Horizontal Expansion

 
Diagonal and Conglomerate Growth

 
Vertical Expansion

 
Transnational Growth

 
 
Chapter 4: Networks
Economics of Networks

 
Broadcasting Networks

 
Global Networks in Transnational Publishing

 
Online Content Distribution

 
Social Networks and Microblogging

 
The Changing Role of Networks in Media Economics

 
 
Chapter 5: Demand: Push to Pull
Mass to Niche

 
User Empowerment

 
Segmentation and Branding

 
Audience Flow Management

 
Market Failure in Broadcasting

 
Public Service Content Provision

 
 
Chapter 6: Economics of Content Supply
Novelty and Risk Spreading

 
Portfolios

 
Repetition and Formats

 
Hollywood and Risk

 
Funding Models: Cost Plus Versus Deficit Financing

 
Windowing

 
 
Chapter 7: Copyright
The Economic Origins of Copyright

 
Copyright and Welfare Losses

 
Digitisation and Enforcement

 
Globalisation

 
Territoriality and Free Trade Areas

 
Commercial Models Other Than Copyright

 
Non-Market Alternative Means of Incentivising Creativity

 
Adjusting Copyright to the 'Open' Internet

 
 
Chapter 8: Media and Advertising
The Advertising Industry

 
Why Does Advertising Take place?

 
Are Firms in Control of Their Own Markets?

 
Informative Versus Persuasive Advertising

 
Advertising as a Barrier to Market Entry

 
Advertising and the Performance of the Economy

 
The Rise of Internet Advertising

 
The Firm's Advertising Decision

 
 
Chapter 9: Digital Media Economics and Public Policy
Free Market Versus Intervention

 
Support Measures for Media Content

 
Protectionism

 
Concentrated Media Ownership

 
Promoting Competition

 
Monopolies and Technological Change

 
Maximising Efficiency

 
PSBs and State Aid Rules

 

This is an excellent textbook on media economics, which takes into account the full complexity of the subject matter in the context of structural, technological and creative transformations that characterise digital media at the start of the twenty-first century.
Milan Todorovic
London Metropolitan University


Gillian Doyle's book provides a wide-ranging, accessible introduction to media economics and their application to a broad range of media topics from advertising and business models to copyright, audience demand and public policy. Whilst critical of the certainties and simplifications of economists, Doyle delivers not only a lucid overview of economic concepts like merit goods, deficit financing and economies of scope, but shows how these continue to be relevant and useful for understanding how media work. The book is alert to the disruptive effects of technology, but highlights the continuities between old and new media, and between economic certainties and media complexity. Some of the chapters could work as self-contained extracts for a seminar or specialist module (each chapter helpfully includes a list of learning outcomes), but the book perhaps works better as a single narrative, with recurrent themes and motifs. What's refreshing about the book is Doyle's willingness to move beyond the boundaries of media economics and forge connections with a diversity of topics, policies, practices and debates. The book is generous with its expertise, covering the basics for a non-specialist and providing up to date insights from current research for more advanced readers, intercut with interviews and examples from the industry. Throughout the book Doyle's experience as a teacher shines through, a reminder that the virtues of good teaching - clear structure, avoiding jargon, questioning received wisdom and providing the resources for readers to form their own opinions rather than expounding one's own - can also inspire good research.
Chris Bilton
Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick


In this accessible and thoroughly up-to-date book, Gillian Doyle expertly synthesizes economic theory and contemporary cases to both explain the structure of the contemporary media industry and shed insight on the significant challenges and controversies confronting the sector. A hugely valuable resource.
Lucy Küng
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University, and Jonkoping University, Sweden


This second edition of Understanding Media Economics is a welcome overhaul that gets to the heart of the issues and challenges in today’s media industry. It is more applicable beyond the classroom than the previous version and should be on the reading lists, not just of students in media economics course, but also of many in Westminster, Brussels and Strasbourg.

Sally Broughton Micova
Research Officer for the LSE Media Policy Project at the London School of Economics and Political Science

A much needed and highly welcome update of this key text.

Professor Julian Petley
School of Arts, Brunel University
September 27, 2014

Still the best introduction to the economics of media industries

Paul Dwyer
Business Administration , University of Westminster
July 1, 2014

This is second edition is still the standard text on media economics as well as the best introduction to the economics of the media industries

Paul Dwyer
Business Administration , University of Westminster
July 1, 2014

May be adopted if course changes are effected to incorporate more on the business of journalism.

Mr Paul Lashmar
School of Arts, Brunel University
March 2, 2014

The first edition of this work has proven extremely useful for students in understanding how the media operate as businesses. This edition will prove to be as useful and popular for students and lecturers alike, due to its clarity and accessibility in an area that, for some students, is difficult for them to engage with, yet it is an extremely important area for anyone embarking on a career in the media.

Ms Lesley Albon
Department of Media, Chester University
February 21, 2014

Doyle's book provides an excellent introduction into the field of media economics for non-economics students, as it resonates well with scholarly debates in other disciplines, such as cultural policy and media studies.

Dr Martijn Stevens
Comparative Art & Cultural Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen
November 22, 2013

This is a valuable book for all those studying media economics. Not only does it furnish a picture of current media industries but it also discusses changes in both advertising and media sectors. I will be recommending it to my MA students.

Dr Nelson Ribeiro
Faculty of Humanities, Catholic University of Portugal
October 26, 2013

In looking at the broader picture of economics that underpin an industry that has always concerned with producing products, Doyle examines the models that form its bedrock and how it continues to adapt to continual change.

Mr Ato Erzan-Essien
Media, Chester University
September 26, 2013

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