EUROPEAN MEDIA MARKETS
Module I – Dr. Marlen Komorowski
Lesson 1
What makes media markets so interesting?
Media depends on technological developments. Market dynamics are dependent on the
rapid changing way we buy media (ex. The music industry and the music revenues that
changed from vinyls, streaming).
Media markets are impacted by how we access media content through the different devices.
Another reason why we look at media markets and want to understand them it’s because its
new entrance to the media markets are disrupting traditional media markets. Other markets
are more static in this way. It's also interesting, and it also relates to the competition,
because all of these different media businesses are competing for your time. We have a
limited number of hours per day to allocate to different media services. Market dynamics
change with new ways of creating and sharing media content (think of how TikTok changed
Instagram).
Media markets are different in each local media market, and access to news and media is
cultural and public cultural good and the public good; this leads to subsidies etc.
Media businesses are impacted through competition.
Lesson 2
What are Media Markets? Definitions and Approaches
A market might be a term that people use synonymously to “industry” or “sector”. So, an
industry usually describes a grouping of companies with highly similar business activities. In
the terminology of Porter, industry is a group of firms that market products that are closed
substitutes for each other (for example cars: in the car industry, industry substitutes can also
be something that can substitute the other product).
A sector can be equal to industry, sometimes the term is used differently from context to
context, sometimes it includes the vertical value chain, or it describes a segment of the
economy (the vertical value chain would be a going-through different parts of the value chain
in different ways: you can either have someone who's manufacturing the car tires and then
other parts of the car, and then someone who's assembling the car, and so on). Basically, it
denotes someone producing a product that is being used in something else.
A market, on the other hand, denotes the structure where buyers and sellers exchange goods.
Media markets more specifically as a term from Marketing Highlights an area or group of
people where everyone receives the same TV programs, read the same newspapers, etc.
So it quite often has a more geographical reach. It could also be a market based on
demographics, targeting a certain age range of people, and so on.
,Industry sectors and markets are all part of the economy of a state or region, which is why we
quite often compare the size of the market to the overall economy.
● Media industry: the group of all of the businesses related to media production, but also
media distribution and other activities in the media industry.
● Media sector: the different segments, so the audio visual sector, the newspaper sector
and so on.
● Media market: has the focus on the whole media industry in a specific region (that’s
why we have the European media market).
● Media clusters: agglomerated media firms in a specific location. So the place is even
more important on where activities take place.
European media markets are the media industry and sectors, and audiences in the EU, its
Member States and the regions in the EU.
What is the problem? The problem is with defining it, because what is part of it and what is
not part of a media market or the media industry is not very clear. So, first of all, the European
Commission states that the media plays a key economic, social, cultural role in Europe which
creates growth and jobs. So it's really a focus also by a lot of public institutions and
governments, and the study fields of European media markets rank from a lot of different
disciplines. So, you have political economy studying it, cultural studies, communication
studies, law, business, film and television studies, just to name a few, that also have different
labels for what a media market is and applying this label also differently.
Can we actually say, for example, that the telecom sector is part of the media industry or
not?Should festivals and the live music sector be included? Quite a lot of people include live
music in the media sector, but it's actually not mediated content. For example, it's nothing you
can buy and take home and then continue to listen to. What about social media? Social media
platforms are moved into the field (eg. original productions from Youtube, ecc.), but most social
media platforms core businesses are not about creating or producing content, it's about just
the connectivity, a platform for content to be shared. So should this be part of the media
industry or not?
Existing approaches
There are four main approaches to analyze sector data and media businesses, all based on
different institutions applying them, and therefore also giving access to different statistics data.
● Cultural industries: Haven, Lotz and Tinic (2009) argue that media industry studies
have been from its beginnings part of the cultural studies field. Culture constitutes
products and services, which is either non-reproducible (a concert, an art fair) or aimed
at reproduction, mass-dissemination and export (a book, a film, a sound recording).
UNESCO is very much involved in everything that relates to the culture industries, it
defines “cultural industries'' as “industries producing and distributing cultural goods or
services”, with cultural goods and services described as “those activities, goods and
services, which at the time they are considered as a specific attribute, use or purpose,
embody or convey cultural expressions, irrespective of the commercial value they may
have”. This is important for the media markets studies field because most of the media
content, media services that we consume have a cultural value. It really focuses on
the products, the outcome of what the media market creates.
, ● Creative industries: This on the other hand, while the first one focused on what is the
outcome of a media market, this one focuses on what is the input. So the creative
processes. The term defines industries on the basis of types of inputs and generative
processes that characterize their creation. The idea of creative industries emphasises
the significance of creativity, such as artistic, scientific and economical creativity
(United Nations & Bureau de Liaison Bruxelles-Europe, 2010). The concept was
formalised in the UK by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Also
the European Cluster Observatory (Power & Nielsen, 2011) adapted the approach of
the creative industries defining them as activities “drawing on advertising, architecture,
art, crafts, design, fashion, film, music, performing arts, publishing, R&D, software, toys
and games, TV and radio, and video games.” There are parts which are not necessarily
classically considered as media, crafts for example, design and so on, but most of the
media sectors are covered by that as well.
● Copyright industries: much closer to the media industry is the idea of the “copyright
industries”. They are defined by intellectual property and in particular intellectual
property subject to copyright as defined by the UN (United Nations & Bureau de Liaison
Bruxelles-Europe, 2010). Copyright applies to “every production in the literary,
scientific and artistic domain, whatever may be the mode or form of its expression”.
Also patents are for example included, which do not necessarily belong to the media
industry. The WIPO includes literary and artistic works, which are defined as outputs
based on original work of authorship and include books, music, plays, choreography,
photography, films, paintings, sculptures, computer programs and databases (World
Intellectual Property Organization WIPO, 2015).
● Media and Content industries: The OECD defines the “media and content industries”
(MCI): “The production (goods and services) of a candidate industry must primarily be
intended to inform, educate and/or entertain humans through mass communication
media” and “these industries are engaged in the production, publishing and/or the
distribution of content...” (OECD, 2011). So, on the one hand they say if you want to
define it, we need to understand what is the intention, so it's not all kind of goods and
services, not all kind of content, but this content specifically needs to inform, educate
and entertain; on the other hand, they focus on the activities: production, publishing
and distribution of content. The origins lie with the rapid transformation through ICT as
these would have a significant impact on content industries (e.g. text, audio, video).
The OECD has therefore developed the concept of the “information economy” as a
combination of the ICT sector and the content sector. Also the European Commission
adopted the same approach covering “the book, broadcasting, cinema, music,
newspapers, and video games industries”. But what about media services like social
media? They are not included into this definition, but overall what is important here to
remember is that markets are part of the media and content industries and produce
content distributed through mass communication.
Other related concepts: computer, telecommunication, and entertainment industries,
information society, new media economy, etc.
How can media markets be described?
OECD only focuses on certain activities of the media and content industries. That's how they
define it, including production, publishing, distribution of content, we acknowledge that there
, are more activities that are essential for the theoretical dimension of the media industry or
media market. This is basically based on something that is called an industrial systems
approach, inspired by Porter in his article from 1990, where you look at all kinds of activities
that need to be integrated that add value to the mediated content. There’s a model developed
by Komorowski herself in an article published in 2018 that basically suggests that all of these
four concepts are not holistic enough to always make sure that we can integrate and look at
all of the segments of the media market that are important for our analyzers. We need a more
flexible model, which she developed as a circle model.
The idea is that if you wanna look at a media market, you can look along the whole value
chain, but also go beyond, looking not only at the core of the media market, but also
supporting, facilitating external entities.
She focused here more on the entities, actors within the sector, because there's always the
question “how can we make sure we cover with our definition or our approach for analysis the
specific media company or the media business that we wanna look at?”.
● Core entities: actors that directly contribute to the production and publishing of
mediated content.
● Supporting entities: actors indirectly contributing or play a supporting role in the
process.
● Facilitators and peripheral entities: actors that are not directly involved but do actually
play relevant roles, such as for valorisation, support, professionalization, etc. (like
universities, other public institutions, SMIT in Brussels, etc.).
● External entities: actors that belong to another sector in a strict sense, but which have
a direct or indirect effect on the process (for instance telecommunication companies
and artistic creation: fashion designers are definitely not part of the core or of the media
sector, but you have fashion designers who make the costumes being used in a
movie.).
Core entities:
A. Publishing
B. Production
C. Publishing/Production (if not distinguishable), eg. A broadcast both produces content
made by VRT, but they are also publishing it, so they're distributing their publishing it
on their channel (quite often there’s a distinction though).
Supporting entities:
A. Distribution
B. Post-production (not only as post-production of AV content)
C. Pre-production
D. Retail
Facilitators and peripheral entities:
A. Membership organisations (Membership)
B. Education
C. Government
