A Network Analytic Approach to Audience Behavior and Market Structure: The Case of China and the United States

This study adopts a network analytic approach to understand media audiences in relation to media markets, bridging the literature on audience behavior and media economics. Using audience data in the Chinese and U.S. markets, we apply multi-level measures to compare audience fragmentation patterns, a key indicator of market structure, across television channels. Drawing on McQuail's four–stage fragmentation model, we find the Chinese television market exhibits the Core-Peripheral model where a few channels dominate the marketplace and the rest are viewed by niche segments of the audience. In contrast, the U.S. market represents the Pluralism model with extremely high levels of audience duplication across channels, suggesting overlapping patterns of exposure throughout the market rather than isolated segments.     

A Network Analytic Approach to Understanding Cross-Platform Audience Behavior

This article explains and implements a network analytic approach to the study of cross-platform audience behavior. It begins by conceptualizing large-scale patterns of media use in network terms, treating media outlets as nodes and the levels of audience duplication among them as links. Following that, it explains 2 common measures of audience duplication, Absolute Duplication and Primary Duplication, and offers a new measure, Deviation-from-Random Duplication. In doing so, techniques for converting duplication data into network data are discussed. This approach is then applied to analyze patterns of audience fragmentation, media publics, and audience polarization using data from Nielsen's TV/Internet Convergence Panel. The findings show the value of using a network approach, by contributing to an alternative understanding of these patterns. Economic and policy implications are discussed, as well as broader reflections on the use of network analysis in the study of audience behavior.     

Audience duplication and its determinants: a study in the multichannel and multiculture television market in Guangzhou,China

This study examines audience duplication, the extent to which the audience of one program also watches the other, and its determinants. Using peoplemeter data from Guangzhou, a multichannel and multicultural television market in China, the study tests the intertwining effects of media structural factors and audience preference factors on audience duplication levels of program pairs. The results show significant effects of the two types of factors. A regression model was established in which these two types of factors together explained 59% of the total variance in audience duplication.     

Can You Repeat That? Patterns of Media Ownership and the “Repurposing” Trend

The article examines shifting patterns of ownership for cable programming services from 1994 to 2003. In these years, vertical integration in the cable industry declined, as cable's multi-system operators divested equity in programming services. Meanwhile, broadcast network-owning media conglomerates invested heavily in cable, tripling their holdings among the top 20 most fully distributed cable channels, as well as launching and acquiring dozens of additional, less widely distributed channels. In light of the Federal Communications Commissions' recent attempts to revise rules regarding television ownership, the author argues that while vertical integration has declined, the market power of the broadcast networks has grown by means of a new kind of horizontal integration that reaches across broadcast and cable channels. This shift is reshaping cable as a market which, despite growing product differentiation, is trending toward less competitive conditions that are akin to the broadcast oligopoly. This article shows that these broadcast-cable alliances contributed to the development of the new synergistic practice of repurposing.     

The status and future of audience duplication research: An assessment of ratings‐based theories of audience behavior

Audience duplication is recognized as a major component of program choice models and a fundamental aspect in understanding television viewing patterns. This study evaluates the utility of a specific set of ratings‐based audience theories developed over the past 25 years, and critiques their future relevance in an increasingly dynamic, complex media environment. An integrated model of audience duplication is presented as a way to assess the ability of current structural theories to explain audience behavior in the future. Recommendations are given for the direction of this research.     

The Impact of Digital Technology on the Distribution Value Chain Model of Independent Feature Films in the UK

In response to the newspaper crisis, U.S. newspapers are seeking new business models for their online operation, but often ignore non-local readers who constitute a non-traditional niche audience with market potential. This study attempts to expand the understanding of the U.S. online newspaper readership in the dual-geographic market by empirically comparing local and long-distance users on demographic characteristics, online behavior, and satisfaction level with the newspaper site. Utilizing a dataset containing 28 newspaper Web sites' 25,964 visitors, this study performed a large-scale, in-depth analysis of online newspapers' long-distance readership unseen in previous research. Results show that more than one fourth of these newspaper sites' online users reside outside the print market. Most long-distance users have personal ties with the geographic area associated with the newspaper. Compared with local users, long-distance users tend to be male, older, better educated, and with a higher income. They are more likely to obtain local sports information from the site, but are less likely to visit the classifieds areas of the site. They also tend to be more loyal to and satisfied with the newspaper site. Newspapers should perceive long-distance users as a potential audience segment rather than an inconvenient truth when developing content, pricing, and marketing strategies.     

Program audience duplication: A study of television inheritance effects

Inheritance effects, especially high levels of audience duplication between adjacent programs, are a widely observed but little understood feature of audience behavior. This study places inheritance effects within a theoretical model of television program choice that attributes the general phenomenon to underlying patterns of audience availability. The absolute level of audience duplication between adjacent programs broadcast on the same network is determined by the rating of each program, the structure of available program options, and similarities in program type.     

THE JOURNALIST IS MARKETING THE NEWS

This study, based on case studies of three online newsrooms, seeks to understand the patterns of how journalists use social media in their news work. Through 150 hours of observations and interviews with 31 journalists, the study found that journalists are normalizing social media while also reworking some of their norms and routines around it, a process of journalistic negotiation. They are balancing editorial autonomy and the other norms that have institutionalized journalism, on one hand, and the increasing influence exerted by the audience—perceived to be the key for journalism's survival—on the other. In doing so, journalists are also seeing a reworking of their traditional gatekeeping role, finding themselves having to also market the news.     

The Evolving Audience Network during Media Environment Transition – A Longitudinal Study of Cross-Platform Use in China

ABSTRACT

Scholars disagree on whether the media environment has become more concentrated, fragmented, polarized or overlapped. By pooling data from a total of 250 audience surveys conducted over 9 years, we investigated the evolution of a cross-platform audience network during a time of transition in the media environment. We found that both the fragmentation and duplication of the media system changed in a curvilinear manner. More importantly, this study showed that the center of the cross-platform network was transferred from offline to online. This study emphasizes the dynamic of media choice at various stages of media technology development.     

"The Farmer's Friend": Radio Comes to Rural America, 1920–1927

Nowhere did the coming of broadcasting have more social impact than in America's rural areas. With radio, farm families that were once isolated by vast distances and poor roads were brought into immediate and continuous contact with the rest of the nation. The United States Department of Agriculture was quick to seize the potential of the new medium and began producing weather forecasts, market reports, and other agricultural programming at an early date. Commercial interests also built stations and designed programming to serve the rural audience. This article examines the arrival of radio on America's farms during broadcasting's earliest years, from the introduction of radio in 1920 to the passage of the Radio Act of 1927.     

Building Buzz and Episodes with Bite-Sized Content: Portlandia's Formula for Turning a Video Project into a Television Series

Media consumers have grown accustomed to content that is broken down into digestible chunks. Portlandia, an Independent Film Channel (IFC) comedy series that affectionately satirizes Portland, Oregon's hipster culture, offers a model of how to attract online viewers and create television programming using short videos intended for a niche audience. IFC promotes these decoupled, song-length clips online and encourages sampling and sharing. Using interviews and an analysis of the program's structure and content, this case study explores how Portlandia takes advantage of the synergy between television and new media, and the way audiences consume video programming in the digital age.     

当下中国电视媒体财经频道生存困境探析——以央视为例

本文认为,长期以来,电视媒体的财经频道未能摆脱对娱乐节目的依赖,其原因在于：一方面是由于网络时代受众收视方式的改变,大大增加了培养目标受众的难度;另一方面在于开路频道难以摆脱收视率的围困,以至于财经频道的专业化之路陷入困境．     

Global export of Hong Kong television: Television broadcasts limited

This study examines the business strategies of media exports by a dominant television company in Hong Kong. It is found that there are four strategies: co‐operative contract, joint venture, barter trade, and management consultancy. These strategies vary with the importing state's reactions as well as interactions between the media exporter and the importing state. The authors argue for a re‐examination of the two conventional approaches in the discussion of media imperialism, namely, the traditional theories of media imperialism and the free market approach. The new approach should emphasize the interactions among the media exporters, the state, and the audience.     

精品节目的界定及其生产机制

随着我国社会经济的发展和电视观众需求的变化,媒体间的竞争日趋激烈,电视媒体与观众之间的关系发生了显著变化。电视媒体要想在激烈的市场竞争中处于有利地位,就必须拿出精品力作,充分认识到生产精品节目的重大意义,创建良好的精品节目生产机制。     

Structural determinants of the television news audience

This study examined the impact that program scheduling and market characteristics had on people's exposure to the early evening local news. Three factors combined to explain 81% of the variation in local news ratings across the U.S.: a station's network news rating, the lead‐in rating for the local news, and the size of the available television audience. We discussed how such structural factors might be better integrated into research and theory that emphasize individual characteristics as determinants of exposure to television programming.     

Editors' Preface: Think Global. Drink Local. National Studies with Transnational Appeal

Ad-financed TV channels are two-sided platforms where media houses provide communication from advertisers to viewers. Most media houses air several channels, some of which are particularly valuable to advertisers. At first glance, one might expect the ad volumes to be highest for the channels that are the advertisers' favorites. However, a crucial management challenge for media houses is to ensure that viewers go where the potential for raising advertising revenue is greatest. Because viewers dislike ads, we show that this implies that advertising volumes will be relatively low (and advertising prices relatively high) in such channels. Indeed, other things equal, the ad volume in a channel is inversely related to its attractiveness to the advertising market. Only if the costs of using alternative tools to attract viewers to the advertisers' favorite channels are sufficiently small will the advertising volume in channels with high demand for ads be larger than in channels with low demand for ads.     

Reconceptualizing and Reexamining Suspense as a Predictor of Mediated Sports Enjoyment

Suspense is a driving force behind media entertainment consumption. However, previous explorations of the role of suspense in the enjoyment of mediated sports have not fully relied upon the richness of research from other genres. The current study seeks to correct this oversight by using the lens of fictional drama to reconceptualize and reexamine suspense as a factor in the enjoyment of sports programming. A total of 161 participants viewed and rated 1 of 7 men's basketball games. The results suggest that a measure of the unfolding nature of suspense is a stronger predictor of mediated sports enjoyment than those used previously.     

Vertical Integration and Market Foreclosure in the Korean Cable Television Industry: An Empirical Study

This study investigated vertical foreclosure effects in the Korean cable television market. While it focuses mainly on vertical foreclosure, the study also examined reciprocal carriage between large vertically integrated cable operators. From the analysis of cross-sectional data regarding cable operators' carriage information in Korea, two conclusions were derived. First, vertically integrated cable operators tend to carry their affiliated channels and were less likely to carry their rivals' channels. Second, the data suggest that large vertically integrated cable operators were engaged in reciprocal carriage.