John C. Busterna

Television station ownership effects on programming and idea diversity: Baseline data

This study establishes performance data for television stations prior to the enactment of FCC crossownership prohibitions and relaxation of multiple ownership rules as a baseline for research on whether regulatory changes have promoted or harmed the public interest in diversity.

The Cross-Elasticity of Demand for National Newspaper Advertising.

b Several contributors to the trade and scholarly literature have lamented the high and still growing concentration in the newspaper industry. Yet, there is no overall agreement regarding the boundaries of the market within which newspapers operate. Without settling upon a consistent definition of these boundaries, we cannot measure newspaper concentration. This definitional dispute concerns whether advertising media in addition to other co-located newspapers compete with (are in the same market as) a given newspaper. For example, Rosse‘ and Owen2 have variously argued tha t television, magazines, radio, direct mail advertising and other mass media compete with newspapers for reader attention and advertising dollars. On the other hand, the case law3 and legal literature4 have fairly consistently supported the view that these other media d o not operate in the same product market as newspapers. To some extent the disagreement may exist because the first group uses a broad, loose definition of “compete,” while the second group uses the more precise, narrow meaning. This study will use advertising data to estimate demand functions for national advertising in newspapers. These

Presidential Endorsement Patterns by Chain-Owned Papers, 1976-84

This study of some 1,500 newspapers in presidential election years 1976, 1980, and 1984 finds that newspapers supported the Republicans about 80% of the time, yet group-owned newspapers did not do so more often than other newspapers. Chain-owned newspapers demonstrated more autonomy than has been found in some earlier studies.

Competition, Ownership, Newsroom and Library Resources in Large Newspapers

This is a comparison of competitive, monopoly joint operating, chain and independent newspapers on these major variables: size of news and library staffs, number of wire services, number of databases taken and monthly search costs. A census of daily newspapers over 100,000 in circulation found the various competitive conditions and chain ownership had no significant impact on the resource measures. This finding is consistent with most previous research on the relationship between newspaper competition, ownership and content performance.

Welfare economics and media performance

The author focuses on criteria for assessing the economic performance of media markets using three concepts from the field of welfare economics: efficiency, equity, and externalities. He argues that the ultimate purposes of media economics research are to identify market structure and conduct elements that harm or help these three criteria, and to suggest policy changes that would improve media market performance.

National Advertising Pricing: Chain vs. Independent Newspapers

b Research that evaluates the performance of newspaper chains falls into two general areas: content studies and economic studies. Studies of the content performance of newspaper chains provide mixed results. However, even if a compelling case could be made for inferior content performance by chains, there would likely be no policy intervention. Without a significant change in the interpretation of First Amendment protections for speech and press, public policy cannot restrict newspaper chain ownership with the intent of trying to improve diversity or quality in the marketplace of ideas. However, public policy, through the use of the antitrust laws, could restrict newspaper chain ownership and practices if certain standards of economic conduct or performance are shown to be violated.

Price Discrimination as Evidence of Newspaper Chain Market Power

This study compares costs charged to advertisers by a sample of 51 Gannett newspapers, as compared with a matched set of independently-owned newspapers, controlling for circulation and other variables. The Gannett group charged a national advertising markup of about 10% more than did the independent newspapers, providing evidence of the power of a strong, well managed group to influence national marketplace prices. There is evidence that power is more important than managerial ability in setting prices. The study suggests that the narrow, local focus of most antitrust law cases involving big media groups should be broadened to reflect a national perspective.