IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/19419.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of the Internet on Advertising Markets for News Media

Author

Listed:
  • Susan Athey
  • Emilio Calvano
  • Joshua Gans

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the hypothesis that an important force behind the collapse in advertising revenue experienced by newspapers over the past decade is the greater consumer switching facilitated by online consumption of news. We introduce a model of the market for advertising on news media outlets whereby news outlets are modeled as competing two-sided platforms bringing together heterogeneous, partially multi-homing consumers with advertisers with heterogeneous valuations for reaching consumers. A key feature of our model is that the multi-homing behavior of the advertisers is determined endogenously. The presence of switching consumers means that, in the absence of perfect technologies for tracking the ads seen by consumers, advertisers purchase wasted impressions: they reach the same consumer too many times. This has subtle effects on the equilibrium outcomes in the advertising market. One consequence is that multi-homing on the part of advertisers is heterogeneous: high-value advertisers multi-home, while low- value advertisers single-home. We characterize the impact of greater consumer switching on outlet profits as well as the impact of technologies that track consumers both within and across outlets on those profits. Somewhat surprisingly, superior tracking technologies may not always increase outlet profits, even when they increase efficiency. In extensions to the baseline model, we show that when outlets that show few or ineffective ads (e.g. blogs) attract readers from traditional outlets, the losses are at least partially offset by an increase in ad prices. Introducing a paywall does not just diminish readership, but it furthermore reduce advertising prices (and leads to increases in advertising prices on competing outlets).

Suggested Citation

  • Susan Athey & Emilio Calvano & Joshua Gans, 2013. "The Impact of the Internet on Advertising Markets for News Media," NBER Working Papers 19419, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19419
    Note: IO PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w19419.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Attila Ambrus & Emilio Calvano & Markus Reisinger, 2016. "Either or Both Competition: A "Two-Sided" Theory of Advertising with Overlapping Viewerships," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 189-222, August.
    2. Anderson, Simon P. & Foros, Øystein & Kind, Hans Jarle & Peitz, Martin, 2012. "Media market concentration, advertising levels, and ad prices," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 321-325.
    3. Alexandre Cornière & Greg Taylor, 2014. "Integration and search engine bias," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 45(3), pages 576-597, September.
    4. Claude Crampes & Carole Haritchabalet & Bruno Jullien, 2009. "Advertising, Competition And Entry In Media Industries," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 7-31, March.
    5. Randall Lewis & Justin M. Rao & David H. Reiley, 2015. "Measuring the Effects of Advertising: The Digital Frontier," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Analysis of the Digital Economy, pages 191-218, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Matthew Gentzkow, 2007. "Valuing New Goods in a Model with Complementarity: Online Newspapers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 713-744, June.
    7. E. Glen Weyl, 2010. "A Price Theory of Multi-sided Platforms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1642-1672, September.
    8. Simon P. Anderson & Stephen Coate, 2005. "Market Provision of Broadcasting: A Welfare Analysis," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(4), pages 947-972.
    9. Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2011. "Ideological Segregation Online and Offline," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 126(4), pages 1799-1839.
    10. Jonathan Levin & Paul Milgrom, 2010. "Online Advertising: Heterogeneity and Conflation in Market Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 603-607, May.
    11. Dirk Bergemann & Alessandro Bonatti, 2011. "Targeting in advertising markets: implications for offline versus online media," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 42(3), pages 417-443, September.
    12. Chandra, Ambarish & Kaiser, Ulrich, 2010. "Targeted advertising in magazine markets," ZEW Discussion Papers 10-063, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    13. Franklin M. Fisher & John J. McGowan & David S. Evans, 1980. "The Audience-Revenue Relationship for Local Television Stations," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 11(2), pages 694-708, Autumn.
    14. Mark Armstrong & Julian Wright, 2007. "Two-sided Markets, Competitive Bottlenecks and Exclusive Contracts," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 32(2), pages 353-380, August.
    15. David S. Evans, 2009. "The Online Advertising Industry: Economics, Evolution, and Privacy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(3), pages 37-60, Summer.
    16. Gerard R. Butters, 1977. "Equilibrium Distributions of Sales and Advertising Prices," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 44(3), pages 465-491.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Susan Athey & Emilio Calvano & Joshua S. Gans, 2014. "The Impact of Consumer Multi-homing on Advertising Markets and Media Competition," CSEF Working Papers 379, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 27 Apr 2016.
    2. Susan Athey & Emilio Calvano & Joshua S. Gans, 2018. "The Impact of Consumer Multi-homing on Advertising Markets and Media Competition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(4), pages 1574-1590, April.
    3. Simon P. Anderson & Bruno Jullien, 2015. "The advertising-financed business model in two-sided media markets," Post-Print hal-02866192, HAL.
    4. Attila Ambrus & Emilio Calvano & Markus Reisinger, 2016. "Either or Both Competition: A "Two-Sided" Theory of Advertising with Overlapping Viewerships," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(3), pages 189-222, August.
    5. Peitz, Martin & Reisinger, Markus, 2014. "The Economics of Internet Media," Working Papers 14-23, University of Mannheim, Department of Economics.
    6. Anna D’Annunzio & Antonio Russo, 2020. "Ad Networks and Consumer Tracking," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(11), pages 5040-5058, November.
    7. Bruno Jullien & Alessandro Pavan & Marc Rysman, 2021. "Two-sided markets, pricing, and network effects," Post-Print hal-03828345, HAL.
    8. Jullien, Bruno & Sand-Zantman, Wilfried, 2021. "The Economics of Platforms: A Theory Guide for Competition Policy," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    9. Paul Belleflamme & Martin Peitz, 2018. "Platforms and network effects," Chapters, in: Luis C. Corchón & Marco A. Marini (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory and Industrial Organization, Volume II, chapter 11, pages 286-317, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Simon P. Anderson & Martin Peitz, 2023. "Ad Clutter, Time Use, and Media Diversity," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 227-270, May.
    11. Simon P. Anderson & Øystein Foros & Hans Jarle Kind, 2018. "Competition for Advertisers and for Viewers in Media Markets," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 34-54, February.
    12. Doh-Shin Jeon & Nikrooz Nasr, 2016. "News Aggregators and Competition among Newspapers on the Internet," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 91-114, November.
    13. Calvano, Emilio & Polo, Michele, 2021. "Market power, competition and innovation in digital markets: A survey," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    14. Emilio Calvano & Bruno Jullien, 2012. "Issues in Online Advertising and Competition Policy: A Two-sided Market Perspective," Chapters, in: Joseph E. Harrington Jr & Yannis Katsoulacos (ed.), Recent Advances in the Analysis of Competition Policy and Regulation, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Jullien, Bruno & Pavan, Alessandro, 2013. "Platform Pricing under Dispersed Information," IDEI Working Papers 793, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    16. Martin Peitz, 2023. "Governance and Regulation of Platforms," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_480, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    17. Song Lin, 2020. "Two-Sided Price Discrimination by Media Platforms," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(2), pages 317-338, March.
    18. Juan Manuel Sanchez‐Cartas & Gonzalo León, 2021. "Multisided Platforms And Markets: A Survey Of The Theoretical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 452-487, April.
    19. Zennyo, Yusuke, 2020. "Freemium competition among ad-sponsored platforms," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).
    20. Flavio Pino, 2022. "The microeconomics of data – a survey," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 49(3), pages 635-665, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:nbr:nberwo:19419. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.