IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/revind/v27y2005i1p17-34.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why is This Show so Dumb? Advertising Revenue and Program Content of Network Television

Author

Listed:
  • Keith Brown
  • Roberto Cavazos

Abstract

Economists have long debated how advertising should be treated in a rational-choice framework. Using unique data from the broadcast networks’ 1995 Fall Network Season, we find that sitcoms attract premia from advertisers, while news and police programs get discounted. We interpret our findings according to two important theoretical treatments of advertising. Because the broadcast networks forgo advertising-unfriendly program content, the cable channel HBO responds with a deliberate counter-programming niche strategy, explicitly airing programming with “darker” and “more difficult” advertising-unfriendly content. Copyright Springer 2005

Suggested Citation

  • Keith Brown & Roberto Cavazos, 2005. "Why is This Show so Dumb? Advertising Revenue and Program Content of Network Television," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 27(1), pages 17-34, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:revind:v:27:y:2005:i:1:p:17-34
    DOI: 10.1007/s11151-005-4836-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11151-005-4836-6
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11151-005-4836-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon P. Anderson & Stephen Coate, 2000. "Market Provision of Public Goods: The Case of Broadcasting," NBER Working Papers 7513, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Goettler, R., 1999. "Advertising Rates, Audience Composition, and Competition in the Network Television Industry," GSIA Working Papers 1999-28, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matthew Ellman & Fabrizio Germano, 2009. "What do the Papers Sell? A Model of Advertising and Media Bias," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(537), pages 680-704, April.
    2. Maria Battaggion & Alessandro Vaglio, 2015. "Watchdogs, Platforms and Audience: An Economic Perspective on Media Markets," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 43(2), pages 209-228, June.
    3. Kerkhof, Anna & Münster, Johannes, 2015. "Quantity restrictions on advertising, commercial media bias, and welfare," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 124-141.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anderson, Simon P. & Gabszewicz, Jean J., 2006. "The Media and Advertising: A Tale of Two-Sided Markets," Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, in: V.A. Ginsburgh & D. Throsby (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 18, pages 567-614, Elsevier.
    2. Nilssen,T. & Sorgard,L., 2001. "The TV industry : advertising and programming," Memorandum 18/2001, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    3. Nilssen, Tore & Sørgard, Lars, 2000. "TV Advertising, Program Quality, and Product-Market Oligopoly," Competition Policy Center, Working Paper Series qt2zp943hj, Competition Policy Center, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    4. Chiou, Lesley & Tucker, Catherine, 2013. "Paywalls and the demand for news," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 61-69.
    5. Bruno Jullien, 2005. "Two-sided Markets and Electronic Intermediaries," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 51(2-3), pages 233-260.
    6. Man-Lui Lau & Bruce Wydick, 2014. "Does New Information Technology Lower Media Quality? The Paradox of Commercial Public Goods," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 145-157, June.
    7. Strömberg, David & Prat, Andrea, 2005. "Commercial Television and Voter Information," CEPR Discussion Papers 4989, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Hans Jarle Kind & Tore Nilssen & Lars Sørgard, 2007. "Competition for Viewers and Advertisers in a TV Oligopoly," Journal of Media Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 211-233.
    9. Pepall, Lynne M. & Richards, Daniel J., 2006. "Advertising and bidding for television rights," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 237-241, February.
    10. Fiona Scott Morton, 2006. "Consumer Benefit from Use of the Internet," NBER Chapters, in: Innovation Policy and the Economy, Volume 6, pages 67-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Simon P. Anderson & Stephen Coate, 2005. "Market Provision of Broadcasting: A Welfare Analysis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(4), pages 947-972.
    12. Charles Angelucci & Julia Cagé, 2019. "Newspapers in Times of Low Advertising Revenues," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 319-364, August.
    13. Sylvia Hristakeva & Julie Holland Mortimer, 2023. "Price Dispersion and Legacy Discounts in the National Television Advertising Market," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(6), pages 1162-1183, November.
    14. Roberto Roson, 2008. "Price Discrimination and Audience Composition in Advertising-Based Broadcasting," Journal of Media Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(4), pages 234-257.
    15. Jean J. Gabszewicz & Didier Laussel & Nathalie Sonnac, 2006. "Competition In The Media And Advertising Markets," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 74(1), pages 1-22, January.
    16. Felix Oberholzer-Gee & Joel Waldfogel, 2001. "Electoral Acceleration: The Effect of Minority Population on Minority Voter Turnout," NBER Working Papers 8252, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Foros, Øystein & Jarle Kind, Hans & Shaffer, Greg, 2011. "Mergers and partial ownership," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 916-926.
    18. Leonard I. Nakamura, 2005. "Advertising, intangible assets, and unpriced entertainment," Working Papers 05-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    19. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/26t617gatp86qree1dejcpchbr is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Gomes, Orlando, 2006. "The dynamics of television advertising with boundedly rational consumers," MPRA Paper 2847, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Timothy Besley & Andrea Prat, 2006. "Handcuffs for the Grabbing Hand? Media Capture and Government Accountability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 720-736, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:revind:v:27:y:2005:i:1:p:17-34. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.