Economist: Media Ownership Rules Should Be Tech-Neutral
Media ownership regulations should shift to being technology-neutral and recognizing that there is now an "integrated video-distribution market" that includes broadcast, cable and streaming, said International Center for Law & Economics Senior Scholar Eric Fruits in a blog post Wednesday.…
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“Market power should be assessed based on a company’s share of this broader market, not just its dominance within a particular technological segment,” wrote Fruits, who is also an economics professor at Portland State University. “Instead of different rule books for different technologies, we need a unified framework based on competition principles.” This would involve sunsetting legacy rules tied to specific transmission mediums and basing any ownership rules on actual market share across all platforms, he said. “The focus should be on antitrust enforcement, rather than preemptive structural regulations.” If viewers “readily switch among cable, broadcast, and streaming based on content, rather than delivery method, regulations should treat these services as competitive alternatives,” Fruits wrote. Making that shift wouldn’t be simple but would allow “a media landscape in which competition would be waged on a level playing field and where consumers, not regulatory distinctions, determine which services succeed.”