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The chapter explores the challenges of datafication as a new paradigm in the digital transformation of Public Service Media (PSM). It argues that while datafication is principally identified as a core dimension of the current transformation of television broadcasting, with data becoming a dominant paradigm also for PSM, we still have scant scientific insight into the conditions under which it is likely to be culturally, economically, legally and politically consequential for broadcasting. Furthermore, how, if at all, it might impact on PSM values and thereby be socially consequential as a new paradigm that enforces prosocial rather than techno-economic values that are beneficial for audiences-as-citizens and society at large. It reviews scholarly literature on key challenges of datafication for television broadcasting; and advances three key proposition regarding its potential effects on PSM values in the digital era, which describe where the tensions lie and therefore where the attention of PSM research and practice should best be focused.

PurposeDynamic capabilities (DCs) help media firms adapt to rapidly changing environments. The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive literature review of studies of DCs in strategic management research with a view to understanding its implications for the management of media organizations. Essentially, it fertilizes on the idea that the concept of DC is useful and vital for answering various critical questions regarding the challenges that media organizations are currently facing.Design/methodology/approachThis study builds on a systematic literature reviewing design as the research methodology. It aims to identify, critically evaluate, and integrate factors, dimensions, and findings on studies of DCs in strategic management research and builds knowledge transfers to the field of strategic management research in the media industry.FindingsThe study shows that the DC framework helps media firms effectively respond to changing environments. The conceptual DC framework has implications for media strategy practice. Results indicate a considerable growth in the number of papers published related to the DCs in media organizations from 2003 to 2018.Originality/valueThe study qualifies the relevance and validity of the DC framework in strategic management research for the field of strategic media management. It explores a research agenda in this domain by precisely explaining the significant trends in the theory of DC to shape managerial strategies in the media industry.

This study critically reviews scholarly debates on state aid for independent, professional news journalism in the public interest, its funding models and principles, the market failure paradigm, an...

Media entrepreneurship is a growing area of research in media business studies. Online interactivity is a relevant driver because of opportunities it provides for entrepreneurs to deliver value directly and inexpensively to target customers. This article presents online interactivity as an under-researched factor in studying digital media entrepreneurship, and used a three-dimensional view of interactivity: intrinsic attribute of communication technology, consistent part of a social interaction, and process of subjective user perception. It finds online interactivity adds value to media firms by increasing audience engagement, hence reducing costs of interaction between media firms and audiences. This research can help to understand levels of environmental pressure for innovation, the organizational and entrepreneurial need to properly act on innovation, the need for strategic choice and decision-making by media firms to initiate and sustain activities of product and process innovation, and the impacts of up- and downstream practices for innovation success of media organizations.

Entrepreneurship and strategy enable media organizations to create new ideas and bring them to the market. However, despite their practical importance, synergistic combinations of these theories are currently under-investigated. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to theoretically explore the phenomenon of strategic media entrepreneurship and lay the foundations for further investigation and theory development. The paper highlights a convergence of strategy and entrepreneurship and shows how they add to organizational success through developing visions, exploring and exploiting opportunities, managing people, building networks, driving creativity, and facilitating strategic planning. Ultimately, the paper contributes by uncovering and reflecting on the assumptions of current theoretical approaches in strategic media management and media entrepreneurship through targeted problematization. This provides the basis for opening new discussions, generating new theories, and exploring emerging phenomena around strategic media entrepreneurship.

Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht Potenziale und Risiken von Big Data für das Leitmedium Fernsehen. Er nimmt dabei eine betont kritisch-normative Perspektive aus Sicht der Medienökonomie ein und analysiert diese anhand des Beispiels Konvergenzfernsehen. Eine der vielen Dimensionen von Big Data ist nämlich die Analyse des Nutzungsverhaltens einer Vielzahl von Konsumenten. Big Data-Dienste verwenden die Analyseergebnisse nicht nur dazu, individuelle Filmempfehlungen zu geben, sondern entscheiden vielmehr darüber, welche Inhalte überhaupt in das Portfolio eines Anbieters aufgenommen bzw. produziert werden. Auch wenn diese Dienste zu einer Optimierung von TV-Vermarktung führen, ist bis heute umstritten, inwiefern Big Data auch Mehrwert für Nutzer generiert. Auf der Sollseite stehen Überwachung, die Frageder Individualisierung und Rationalisierung des Konsums und generell die Kommodifizierung des Mediums.

This study offers an economic analysis of the television broadcasting industry at the convergence of broadcast and broadband connectivity. It finds that media convergence obscures rather than illuminates the complexity of the current changes in the industry. However, the structure-conduct-performance (SCP) model of industrial organization theory can fruitfully be applied to various questions of the fundamental transformation toward connected TV. Yet, the emerging ecosystem for connected TV in Germany is immature and each provider is struggling to realize an optimal corporate strategy and organizational form in the connected TV domain.

State aid for film is a contested terrain, stricken with many challenges and threats to industry, filmmakers and government administration. However, it remains a pivotal tool for cultural diversity in the field of film media and other audiovisual services. This chapter provides a synoptic overview of key issues covered in the book.

“The economics of film determines its infrastructure—its foundations—and therefore its potential. The politics of film determines its structure, that is: the way it relates to the world”: James Monaco (2009, p. 289) “A movie is risky, but if the illusion of control convinces a manager that the risk can be controlled by putting a star in the movie, or adding special effects, or introducing a story line for broader appeal, or spending heavily on advertising, then we will get just the kind of movies we have today. But, the risks cannot be controlled; they are inherent in the very nature of the business.” Arthur De Vany (2004, p. 270)

The paper explores the relationship between the concept of “big data” and television broadcasting changing toward a Connected TV ecosystem. We start from the literature-based assumption that big data is a slippery and ambiguously used term and then discuss how the term is employed in different scholarly discourses to explain the changes concerning broadcast television. We infer that the big data phenomenon requires much closer attention to research in media economics in an attempt to advance our theoretical understanding beyond technological issues that server data, social media, rich customer databases and return path data can deliver. We find that analyses into big data can help understand both opportunities and threats of its use with regard to legacy broadcasters trying to add value of audience research in order to achieve competitive advantage. While asking how big data adds value to a broadcaster’s decision on corporate strategies in Connected TV is important, we remain skeptical as to what effectively is to be gleaned from “big data” when methodologies are not transparent and audiences are sold as mere data commodities to advertisers.

Der vorliegende Beitrag versucht, den theoretischen Gehalt des Konzepts „Geschafts- und Erlosmodelle in den Medien“ im Kontext der gegenwartigen Dynamiken des digitalen Medienwandels auszuloten. Ziel ist, konzeptionelle Grundlagen fur das Thema der Geschafts- und Erlosmodellierung von insbesondere publizistischen Massenmedien aus Sicht der Medienokonomie zu skizzieren und gegebenenfalls zu festigen bzw. zu erweitern. Dieser Beitrag stellt die Hypothese auf, dass die Medienokonomie zahlreiche Aspekte zu Geschafts- und Erlosmodellen in den Medien identifiziert hat, es aber dennoch keinen koharenten Fundus an Ansatzen und Modellen fur deren Erklarung gibt. Es ist allerdings anzunehmen, dass die Effektivitat dieser Modelle uber die Zukunftsfahigkeit von Medien mitentscheidet. Die Argumentation stutzt sich auf Analyse und Synthese der vorhandenen Literatur. Im Ergebnis spricht vieles dafur, dass den Dynamiken des Medienwandels folgend, gegenlaufige Tendenzen in der Geschafts- und Erlosmodellierung in den Medien existieren. Mit anderen Worten: Es kommt zu Grenzziehungen und Entgrenzungen, Differenzierungen und Entdifferenzierungen von Modellen in einem Prozess, in dem sich publizistische Massenmedien modernisieren und zugleich ihre Unternehmensstrategien zur Refinanzierung der Leistungserstellungs- und Verwertungsprozesse und -strukturen krisenhaft werden.

Newspapers are facing a variety of profound challenges that threaten the printed publishing news media industry’s survival. Online video originates as a new format of convergence which, if successfully planned and applied, may contribute to business survival, allowing newspapers to reclaim lost readers and add new ones. We analyse the German market for online video services and explore the economic viability of diversifying into online video in regional newspaper publishing. We find that online video is an achievable but yet not profitable step towards financial growth and that further activities in diversifying the business for printed news publishing are necessary.

This chapter investigates whether contingency theory (CT) serves as a valid theoretical framework in order to test its applicability for explaining current processes of the television broadcasting industry’s convergence towards connected TV. Following CT, it assumes that an organization’s environment creates challenges or contingencies that managers need to address in part by adopting appropriate strategies. When managers find themselves in a situation that does not match these contingencies, their organization’s performance suffers, and they endeavor to change its structures to one with a better fit, in order to improve performance. The author finds that CT can fruitfully be applied to various questions surrounding the fundamental transformation of television broadcasting convergence. This argument is supported by evidencing the emerging “ecosystem” for connected TV services in Germany.

Media management is a young academic field that has yet to establish a universally accepted set of theoretical foundations (Kung, 2007; Mierzejewska & Hollifield, 2006). Albeit its strong growth in academic teaching and scholarly output, it remains a confused field. The field is neither clearly defined nor a cohesively organized. It remains rather a loose agglomeration of work by researchers from various scientific fields.

This article compares the subsidy schemes of the daily press in Austria, France, Norway and Sweden. In those countries, financial subsidy schemes to daily newspapers seek to balance the objective of promoting economic competitiveness in the national media grid with the wider objective of securing plurality of titles and diversity of views. This article locates financial subsidies within a broader framework of press regulation, looks into the instruments of public press intervention in the four countries and critically examines the results to safeguard economic competition and press diversity. In contrast to the Anglo-Saxon minimalist approach to press regulation which rejects the interventionist approach to providing cash injections to newspapers in need, the continental-style authorities in Austria, France, Norway and Sweden adhere to a public policy of granting subsidies to their press, according to which the democratic and political function — namely to guarantee that citizens have access to information, are accurately informed and actively take part in the political process — is promoted. However, public austerity programmes, increased commercial competition, shifting audience tastes of newspaper readers and the inherent weaknesses of the current instruments have forced all four countries to rethink their subsidy schemes. This article argues that government policies that aim at engendering economic opportunity and prosperity of daily newspapers, editorial pluralism and diversity of opinion need to respond adequately and effectively to these pressures of changing market conditions, which not only endanger the normal functioning of the press market but also a public service culture of newspapers.

This book offered the opportunity to establish a comprehensive analysis for locating State Aid for Newspapers within different types of economic and cultural settings in Europe and abroad. It located the current disruptive challenges of the news industry as reference point for government intervention into the press. It explored both theoretical arguments surrounding state aid for newspapers and added knowledge on current issues of subsidy governance in various empirical contexts through case study evidence collected from various countries across the globe. The book concludes with some reflections on the need for political intervention into the newspaper industry. However, it remains critical as to the ways these interventions can be justified, both theoretically and empirically.

Ever since newspaper companies have first turned to their governments for support to halt newspaper mortality caused by mounting economic problems in the 1950s, most continental-style European states have tended to agree upon applying public government-backed support to their print media operations and outlets. In contrast to the liberal Anglo-Saxon approach to press regulation which largely rejects the interventionist approach to providing cash injections to newspapers in need, corporatist-style government authorities in mainland Europe have long adhered to a public policy of granting financial subsidies to their press, according to which their democratic and political function—to guarantee that citizens have access to information, are accurately informed, and actively take part in the democratic political process––is promoted.

If one first lays aside any definitional problems—the term state aid is used within the European Union, and the term subsidies the standard expression of the World Trade Organization, while the OECD prefers to use the word support—state aid, at a very fundamental level, commonly refers to a cash payment or financial assistance from a government or other public authority to a person or company. State aid for newspapers, more particularly, usually serves two main purposes: They should reduce a person’s or company’s cost of producing and bringing a commodity to market, and, secondly, by reducing the price of the commodity, should increase its consumption beyond what competitive market forces would provide for.

Media in Austria have to cope with two basic and obviously unchangeable conditions: (a) the limited size and shortage of resources of the national and regional domestic markets and (b) Germany as large neighbouring country with a highly developed range of media products belonging to the same language area. Austria itself is a small market with about eight million inhabitants and it is divided into even smaller regional markets (with only one exception—the Viennese region with two million inhabitants). And it is part of the German language area, which means that a great number of widely read special interest magazines and some weekly magazines are produced and published in Germany. The same goes for the television sector.

Newspapers are facing a variety of profound and disruptive challenges that come to threaten the printed publishing industry’s race for survival. By offering interactive e-commerce applications and services, and thereby actively engaging consumers in the communication process, news publishers are increasingly are emphasizing solid and sustainable relationships that may help them achieve improved economic viability and sustainable competitive advantages in the electronic marketplace.