Media Market Concentration, Advertising Levels, and Ad Prices
CESifo, Munich, 2011
CESifo Working Paper No. 3677
Standard media economics models imply that increased platform competition decreases ad levels and that mergers reduce per-viewer ad prices. The empirical evidence, however, is mixed. We attribute the theoretical predictions to the combined assumptions that there is no advertising congestion and that viewers single-home. Allowing for crowding in viewer attention spans for ads may reverse standard results, as does allowing viewers to multi-home.
Industrial Organisation