TV advertising, programming investments, and product-market oligopoly

Abstract

We present a model of the TV-advertising market that encompasses both the product markets and the market for TV programs. We argue that the TV industry has several idiosyncratic characteristics that need to be modeled, and show that the strategic interaction in this industry differs from other industries in many respects. We find that a move from a TV monopoly to a TV duopoly may reduce both the total number of viewers and the total amount of TV advertising. A softening of price competition in each product market results in more investment in programming, higher price per advertising slot, and more advertising. A reduction of the number of firms in each product market may have the opposite effect if the price competition in the product market is sufficiently soft initially. Finally, we find that even small asymmetries between product markets can cause large asymmetries with respect to which producers buy advertising on TV.