Watergate, the Bipartisan Struggle for Media Access, and the Growth of Cable Television

As the televised Watergate hearings captivated the nation during the summer of 1973, they provided innovative programming that stimulated civic activism and taught Congress about the political power of television. Both of these developments ultimately boosted the fortunes of the cable television industry. The Senate hearings, which initiated a dramatic conclusion to a presidency that redefined the place of media in American political life, served to elevate a national conversation about the role of television in politics and to catalyze, across the political spectrum, a reconsideration of the structure of the broadcast network oligopoly. The post-Watergate era provided multiple opportunities to reimagine cable TV as a tool to assert political leadership, encourage civic engagement, and govern the public.

Political and Technological Changes That Created Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly

This chapter describes the regulatory, political, and technological changes in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s that set the stage for the television satire and outrage programming of the early 2000s. It summarizes the story of the deregulation of the American media industry and argues that the resulting increased demand for profits from television news eroded the journalistic mission. It also explains the roots of political polarization in the United States, from social and cultural shifts to changes in the party nominating processes and to the increased role of soft (and dark) money in elections. The chapter chronicles the history of the cable television industry and how the proliferation of channels in the 1980s upended the economics of media, erasing the concept of the “mass audience” in favor of smaller niche audiences defined by psychographics and sociodemographics.

When the Greedy Giant Tumbling Down: Analyzing Nickelodeon's Spatialization Practice in Indonesia

The developments of technology and globalization have made the emergence of various changes in media industry. In the entertainment sector various children programs can be broadcasted easily in Indonesia through the cable television industry. Unfortunately, the market share of cable industry is currently experiencing sluggishness. It encourages Nickelodeon to apply certain ways to keep its products dominance in Indonesia. Using spatialization approach in the study of the political economy media, this article aims to describe how Nickelodeon, maintains its product dominance to face that condition. From descriptive qualitative analysis conducted on the news in the mass media and the national company website, found the tendency of localizing strategic alliance both with national companies in the media and non-media industries. Cooperation built between Nickelodeon and the media industry (MNC Group) creates Indonesian-language cartoons and special shows for Indonesian children. Meanwhile, cooperation with non-media companies (Telkomsel and Campina) creates a corporate community base that supports the marketing of Nickelodeon products. The implications of Nickelodeon's collaboration with Telkomsel in the creation of mobile applications are discussed in this article as the social impact of spatialization practices resulting in imbalance of accessing information.

Intermediaries in Two-Sided Markets: An Empirical Analysis of the US Cable Television Industry

Local television stations are platforms in a two-sided market connecting advertisers and viewers. This paper explicitly examines the effect that important intermediaries (such as cable, telephone, and satellite distributors) may have on a platform's pricing behavior in a two-sided market. I find that stations raise their fees to cable distributors because stations prefer that viewers access their content through satellite distributors with whom they do not compete in the local advertising market, and that station mergers lower stations' fees to distributors by partially internalizing a pricing externality that results from the mandatory bundling of local content. (JEL C78, D12, G34, L11, L82, M37)

Buffet or à la Carte

Pricing strategy plays a key role in most organizations. The pricing decision of bundling or à la carte in the case of cable television industry is a long debated one. While consumers seem to favor the à la carte option, operators are persistent in continuing with the bundling options. In this chapter, we explore both sides of the argument. We then discuss several factors affecting the players in the eco-system of cable television industry; these include the subscriber-operator relationship, operator-distributor relationship, and the role of government policies affecting their decisions. In concluding we use these factors to conceptualize a framework that seeks to assist the players in the cable television industry in choosing an adequate pricing model.