Abstract
In the last few years, consumers have found it increasingly easy to access content through the internet that they would previously have obtained from broadcasters, through cable television or satellite television, or on CDs, DVDs, and printed materials. In addition, they have access to a wide variety of user-generated content and social-networking sites to occupy time that once might have been devoted to traditional media. Despite these dramatic changes in access to media, however, most people still obtain much of their entertainment and information from rather traditional sources, such as cable and broadcast television networks, newspapers, magazines, or their online affiliates. But the owners of these media are now justifiably worried that this traditional environment is about to be disrupted, perhaps in a dramatic fashion.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
See Crandall and Furchtgott-Roth (1996) for estimates of the consumer benefits of cable television deregulation.
- 2.
Some telecommunications equipment PCE is recorded in telecommunications services because of the handset subsidies offered by carriers.
- 3.
It is not clear whether streaming revenues for Netflixare included in this category by BEA.
- 4.
For a first step in this direction, see Banerjee et al. (2011).
- 5.
- 6.
Liebowitz (2008) makes a related point in his analysis of online music downloads.
- 7.
- 8.
Envisional Ltd. (2011).
- 9.
Speech given at the National Association of Broadcasting Convention, Las Vegas, NV, April 11, 2011, available at http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db0412/DOC-305708A1.pdf.
- 10.
The latest (2009) BLS Time Use Survey finds that the average adult (aged 15 and over) watches television only 2.82 h per day or only 20 h per week.
- 11.
“Online Video Will Replace Pay TV in 4.5 Million Homes by Year-End,” The Hollywood Reporter, July 20, 2011.
- 12.
These data are found at www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics.
- 13.
These data are found on http://blog.tweeeter.com/2011/03/numbers.html.
- 14.
Consumer electronics manufacturing is not addressed in this paper because the focus is on the shifting use of electronic devices and its impact on media companies and distributors. Obviously, consumer electronics companies have generally thrived, particularly those—such as Apple—who have led in developing audio players, smart phones, laptops, and the new tablets.
- 15.
Available at http://www.census.gov/services/.
- 16.
The BEA data on publishing is ignored because print is combined with software in their value-added data.
- 17.
It is possible that this stability is an artifice, driven by BEA’s estimation procedure between benchmarks.
- 18.
Comcast recently completed its acquisition of 51 % NBC/Universal for $13.8 billion.
- 19.
Cox Cable and MediaCom are not included because they are now privately-held companies.
- 20.
The major record labels have declined substantially. Sony retains the Sony-BMG label. Warner Music Group was sold to Access Industries for $3.3 billion in 2011; Universal Music remains with Vivendi, a French company; and EMI was acquired by Citigroup in a prepackaged bankruptcy in 2011. Citigroup is now attempting to sell EMI for about $4 billion.
- 21.
Three of the major media companies, Disney NewsCorp., and NBC/Universal own Hulu, a new media company that streams programming over the internet.
- 22.
AOL is excluded from Time Warner. Because segment data is not available for Liberty Media and NBC/Universal for these years, they are excluded.
- 23.
Note that these data are for 8/31/2011, substantially before the initial public offering of Facebook stock in 2012.
- 24.
Google’s recent decision to buy Motorola Mobility is widely seen as an attempt to enter not only the production of smartphones, but also an attempt to use Motorola technology to develop the set-top boxes for its Google TV offering.
- 25.
Swinburne et al. (2011).
- 26.
See, for example, http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-us-advertising-by-medium-2011-7.
- 27.
Ultimately, these distributors could be bypassed by new wireless technologies that may be deployed to allow the delivery of the requisite data directly to households.
References
Arewa O (2010) YouTube, UGC, and digital music: competing business and cultural models in the internet age. Northwest Univ Law Rev 104(2):75–431
Banerjee A, Alleman J, Pittman L’Tanya, Rappoport P (2011) Forecast of over-the-top video demand, 31st International symposium on forecasting, Prague, June 26–29
Crandall RW, Furchtgott-Roth HW (1996), Cable TV: regulation or competition. The Brookings Institution
Envisional Ltd (2011) Technical report: an estimate of infringing use of the internet, January
Houthakker HS, Taylor LD (1966) Consumer demand in the United Sates, 1929–1970. Harvard University Press, USA
Houthakker HS, Taylor LD (2010) Consumer demand in the United Sates: Prices, Income, and Consumption Behavior, Springer, USA
Liebowitz SJ (2008) File-sharing: creative destruction or just plain destruction? J Law Econ 49:1–24
Oberholzer-Gee F, Strumpf K (2007) The effect of file sharing on record sales: an empirical analysis. J Political Econ, Vol 115, pp 1–42
Owen B (1999) The internet challenge to television. Harvard University Press, USA
Swinburne B et al (2011) Media and cable/satellite, next up in the evolution of media: the connected TV. Morgan Stanley, New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Crandall, R.W. (2014). “Over the Top:” Has Technological Change Radically Altered the Prospects for Traditional Media?. In: Alleman, J., Ní-Shúilleabháin, Á., Rappoport, P. (eds) Demand for Communications Services – Insights and Perspectives. The Economics of Information, Communication, and Entertainment. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7993-2_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7993-2_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-7992-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7993-2
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)