Cable Regulation in the Internet Era

Gregory S. Crawford

No 270545, Economic Research Papers from University of Warwick - Department of Economics

Abstract: The market for multi-channel video programming has undergone considerable change in the last 15 years. Direct-Broadcast Satellite service, spurred by 1999 legislation that leveled the playing field with cable television systems, has grown from 3% to 33% of the U.S. MVPD (cable, satellite, and telco video) market. Telephone operators have entered in some parts of the US and online video distributors are a growing source of television viewing. This chapter considers the merits of cable television regulation in light of these developments. It surveys the dismal empirical record on the effects of price regulation in cable and the more encouraging but incomplete evidence on the benefits of satellite and telco competition. It concludes with a consideration of four open issues in cable markets: horizontal concentration and vertical integration in the programming market, bundling by both cable systems and programmers, online video distribution, and temporary programming blackouts from failed carriage negotiations for both broadcast and cable programming. While the distribution market is clearly now more competitive, concerns in each of these areas remain.

Keywords: Financial; Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 72
Date: 2013-01-18
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/270545/files/twerp_1004.pdf (application/pdf)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/270545/files/twerp_1004.pdf?subformat=pdfa (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uwarer:270545

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.270545

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economic Research Papers from University of Warwick - Department of Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().