Strategic Complementarities in a Model of Commercial Media Bias

Arbeitspapier

Media content is an important privately supplied public good. While it has been shown that contributions to a public good crowd out other contributions in many cases, the issue has not been thoroughly studied for media markets yet. We show that in a standard model of commercial media bias, qualities of media content are strategic complements, whereby investments into quality crowd in further investments and engage competitors in a race to the top. Therefore, financially strong public service media can mitigate commercial media bias: the content of commercial media can be more in line with the preferences of the audience and less advertiser-friendly in a dual (mixed public and commercial) media system than in a purely commercial media market.

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• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 10738

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Game Theory and Bargaining Theory: General ; Public Goods ; Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets ; Economics of Regulation ; Entertainment; Media
• Subject: commercial media bias ; public service media ; advertising two-sided markets ; supermodular games ; strategic complements ; public goods

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Kerkhof, Anna ; Münster, Johannes
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
• (where): Munich
• (when): 2023

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/282426