Should the Internet Exempt the Media Sector from the Antitrust Laws?

This article examines whether the old media and the new media , including the Internet, should be considered to be within the same relevant market for antitrust purposes. To do this the article first demonstrates that proper antitrust consideration of the role of non-price competition necessitates that “news” and “journalism” be analyzed in two distinct ways. First, every part of the operations of a newspaper (or other type of media source), including its investigative reporting and local coverage, should be assessed separately. We present empirical evidence collected for this study which demonstrates that the old media continues to win the vast majority of journalism awards. This and other evidence shows that the quality and variety of a number of specific old media functions are often so much better they should be considered distinct markets for antitrust purposes. Second, the evidence shows that the totality of what newspapers (or other media sources) do should be analyzed as a whole. This is because newspapers constitute a valuable form of “one stop shopping” for a diverse array of bundled journalism. For both reasons newspapers often should continue to constitute separate markets for antitrust purposes. If antitrust decision makers accept arguments that the Internet should routinely be included within the same market as the traditional media, however, the media sector would become virtually exempt from the antitrust laws. This would be a prescription for disaster.. The appendices for this paper are available at the following URL: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/all_fac/1748

Should the Internet Exempt the Media Sector from the Antitrust Laws?

Suppose the twenty largest traditional news media companies in the United States, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and CNN, announced the merger of their news operations. They would likely claim that this merger would result in tremendous cost savings by eliminating duplicative news gathering expenses. They would be correct. They also would argue that prices would not be affected. After all, they compete for advertising dollars and personnel with many other TV and radio shows that are not in the news business. It would be difficult to demonstrate an adverse effect on the price of anything. However, just in case the antitrust enforcers argue that some prices might be affected, suppose the media companies also announced that, if allowed to merge, they’d agree never to raise the price of anything—not of advertising rates, not of newspapers, not of anything

Should the Internet Exempt the Media Sector from the Antitrust Laws?

Suppose the twenty largest traditional news media companies in the United States, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and CNN, announced the merger of their news operations. They would likely claim that this merger would result in tremendous cost savings by eliminating duplicative news gathering expenses. They would be correct. They also would argue that prices would not be affected. After all, they compete for advertising dollars and personnel with many other TV and radio shows that are not in the news business. It would be difficult to demonstrate an adverse effect on the price of anything. However, just in case the antitrust enforcers argue that some prices might be affected, suppose the media companies also announced that, if allowed to merge, they’d agree never to raise the price of anything—not of advertising rates, not of newspapers, not of anything

Should the Internet Exempt the Media Sector from the Antitrust Laws?

This article examines whether the old media and the new media , including the Internet, should be considered to be within the same relevant market for antitrust purposes. To do this the article first demonstrates that proper antitrust consideration of the role of non-price competition necessitates that “news” and “journalism” be analyzed in two distinct ways. First, every part of the operations of a newspaper (or other type of media source), including its investigative reporting and local coverage, should be assessed separately. We present empirical evidence collected for this study which demonstrates that the old media continues to win the vast majority of journalism awards. This and other evidence shows that the quality and variety of a number of specific old media functions are often so much better they should be considered distinct markets for antitrust purposes. Second, the evidence shows that the totality of what newspapers (or other media sources) do should be analyzed as a whole. This is because newspapers constitute a valuable form of “one stop shopping” for a diverse array of bundled journalism. For both reasons newspapers often should continue to constitute separate markets for antitrust purposes. If antitrust decision makers accept arguments that the Internet should routinely be included within the same market as the traditional media, however, the media sector would become virtually exempt from the antitrust laws. This would be a prescription for disaster.. The appendices for this paper are available at the following URL: http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/all_fac/1748