Platform Power and Policy in Transforming Television Markets

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Planet of the Platforms

   • Tom Evens, Karen Donders

   Pages 1-13

3. From Local Utility to Global Commodity

   • Tom Evens, Karen Donders

   Pages 15-46

4. Game of Screens

   • Tom Evens, Karen Donders

   Pages 47-85

5. Power to the Platforms

   • Tom Evens, Karen Donders

   Pages 87-129

6. The Retransmission Swamp

   • Tom Evens, Karen Donders

   Pages 131-165

7. Regulating the Retransmission Swamp

   • Tom Evens, Karen Donders

   Pages 167-199

8. Policing the Platforms

   • Tom Evens, Karen Donders

   Pages 201-242

9. Winner Takes All

   • Tom Evens, Karen Donders

   Pages 243-258

10. Back Matter

    Pages 259-304

    PDF

This book seeks to investigate ‘platform power’ in the multi-platform era and unravels the evolution of power structures in the TV industry as a result of platformisation. Multiple TV platforms and modes of distribution are competing–not necessarily in a zero-sum game–to control the market. In the volume, the contributors work to extend established ‘platform theory’ to the TV industry, which has become increasingly organised as a platform economy. The book helps to understand how platform power arises in the industry, how it destabilises international relations, and how it is used in the global media value chain. Platform Power and Policy in Transforming Television Markets contributes to the growing field of media industry studies, and draws on scholarly work in communication, political economy and public policy whilst providing a deeper insight into the transformation of the TV industry from an economic, political and consumer level. Avoiding a merely legal analysis from a technology-driven perspective, the book provides a critical analysis of the dominant modes of power within the evolving structures of the global TV value chain. 

• platform power
• multi-platform
• online businesses
• tv industry
• platform
• structural power
• TV
• television

“This book is a welcome addition to the fields of media policy, media industries and screen business. ... It is an ambitious book that tackles the emergence and impact of new players across the globe, detailing the complex interactions between national policy, business models and patterns of consumption. ... The breadth of the research is one of the strengths of this book.” (Jane Roscoe, Critical Studies in Television, Vol. 14 (2), 2019) “This is an indispensable text for anyone interested in the economics of television distribution. Posing a compelling argument about the changing nature of power in the media industries, Platform Power is also an excellent primer to the key policy debates in the field.” (Ramon Lobato, RMIT University, Australia)

• imec-mict, Department of Communication Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

  Tom Evens

• imec-SMIT, Department of Communication Sciences, Free University of Brussels, Brussels, Belgium

  Karen Donders

Tom Evens is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences at Ghent University, Belgium, and member of the imec research group for Media, Innovation and Communication Technologies.

Karen Donders is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, and member of the imec research group for Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunication.

Policies and ethics