Introduction
Media management has been an effective and very prominent tool for businesses and even politicians these days. Because of that, it would be important for everyone who is planning to take advantage of the benefits of media in advertising to at least know some basics about Media Economics (Taylor & Francis, 2010).
As an overview, media economics is simply the application of economics (social science that deals with the choices of every individual and groups of individuals as they cope with scarcity) with media and communications. At some point, we can relate it to courses like broadcast journalism, communication arts and mass communications. Now, there have been some debates about whether or not broadcasters should have minimum amount of locally-made content quotas as a means of protecting the economic interests of locally-based television producers. This paper will focus on this particular topic and its implications in case it will be enforced in countries where it is not yet implemented and if such law will continue to be compulsory in countries where it originated.
Is it Desirable to use Compulsory local media content quotas as a means to protect economic interests of locally based television producers?
The problem is not really a tough one to handle but we cannot say that it is just an easy one too. For me, there are a lot of things that could possibly happen if we are to favor the locally-based television producers’ side or if we are to favor the audiences’ and the broadcasters’ side. Based on previous lectures, there is not just a single economic media determinant we are to consider whenever we talk about media economics because media economics is a dual-product market. Therefore, we could safely state that the life of media economics lay in these 2 markets.
The 2 markets are the content and the audience market. Without these 2 determinants or characteristics, media would be nothing and no one would really want to turn their televisions on every specific time of the day. In my opinion, audiences and contents are another two very directly related entities. Contents are what audiences usually pay for. Basketball games, boxing games paid on a pay per view scheme are two common examples. On the other hand, the audiences are not really what producers and advertisers are after; it’s the access to audiences that they sought.
If ever compulsory enforcement of local media contents production will be implemented, the possible effect of that would be an increased amount of local media contents. Note that different audiences may have different tastes when it comes to the content that they want to be viewed. If all TV networks will implement this kind of ordinance for their broadcasters, I think it would be mayhem and local TV producers would start to lose their once rich and easy access to audiences soon which would most likely result to an economic disturbance. Also, one of the most compelling implications of broadcasting quotas is that it harms diversity (Mathieu, 2010).
Conclusion
This would usually cause an imbalance between leading producers and TV networks (Gabszewicz, J., Laussel, D., & Sonnac, N, 2004). As a conclusion, it would be better if local and even international producers would just aim to keep the diversity level of the contents to a high level so that their audience access wouldn’t be harmed in any way. In the end, high quality and diverse content will be created by broadcasters because they won’t be pressured to reach their quotas and this will still be a plus factor for local media producers.
References
Taylor & Francis. Journal of Media Economics. United Kingdom: Routledge, 2010. Print.
Mathieu. How Broadcasting Quotas Harm Program Diversity. Germany: University Library of
Munich, 2010. Print.
Gabszewicz, J., Laussel, D., & Sonnac, N. Programming and Advertising Competition in the
Broadcasting Industry. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(4), pages 657-669, December 2004. Print.
