Online and print newspapers in Europe in 2003. Evolving towards complementarity

This article assesses online newspapers in Europe from a media evolutionary perspective, ten years after the introduction of the World Wide Web. Comparing print and online front pages of 51 newspapers in 14 countries in 2003, we argue that online newspapers complement print newspapers in modest ways. Online, publishers put more emphasis on service information, offer additional news items, that nonetheless report on similar topics in similar ways, and add personal interactivity, content selectivity and realtime news to the print news offering. One subset of online newspapers charges for services, and offers more content and personal interactivity. Another, partly overlapping subset offers more original news; in a short and anonymous format. Overall, however, online newspapers in Europe make up a heterogeneous group, suggesting that online newspapers still have to find their definite form and role in the European news market

Structure, Conduct, and Performance of the Agricultural Trade Journal Market in The Netherlands

This article investigates how structure and conduct determine performance of the agricultural trade journal market in The Netherlands. It builds upon industrial organization theory and reviews relevant media market performance models. It shows how professional information prices and diversity follow from providers' strategic choices for lowest common denominator or product differentiation strategies. It attributes strategic choices to three underlying market structural characteristics, namely the balance between information and attention markets, concentration of information providers, and disintermediation. It concludes that prices and diversity, respectively, are determined by similar competitive relations but at different market levels.

Business Magazine Market Performance: Magazines for the Agricultural, Business Services, and Transportation Sectors in the Netherlands

Business magazines provide need-to-know information to decision makers and professionals. Prices, product variety, and diversity of those magazines follow from publishers' differentiation strategies, which in turn depend on market characteristics. Competition and concentration stimulate differentiation strategies, whereas they have opposite effects on prices. However, cost structures and demand conditions make differentiation strategies dependent on the willingness of audiences to pay high subscription prices. Also, noncommercial publishers adopt strategies other than commercial ones. In combination, these factors determine prices, product variety, and magazine diversity in markets for agricultural, business services, and transportation magazines in the Netherlands in the 1990s.

Impact of Moderate and Ruinous Competition on Diversity: The Dutch Television Market

This article analyzes how competition in television broadcasting influences diversity of program supply. We argue that competition in oligopolistic broadcasting markets can take different forms, depending on the strategies adopted by broadcasters. We distinguish between moderate and ruinous competition, and discuss under what conditions these types of competition will emerge. We hypothesize that moderate competition improves diversity, whereas ruinous competition produces excessive sameness. We test these hypotheses for the Dutch television market.