Cool Platforms: Media Markets

By Bruce M. Owen (Stanford University)

Media of communication present challenges to regulators and antitrust analysts. While it has become traditional to view media as “platforms” that support “multi-sided markets,” it is far from clear that media markets for inputs and outputs are usefully treated as belonging to a new and unique category of business enterprise. Most firms produce multiple products or services and make or buy multiple inputs. A price change for any one of these inputs or outputs affects the demand and supply of all other inputs and outputs, either through demand or supply relationships or both. Media are different from other firms because they supply goods that are non-rivalrous, subject to network effects and important to political processes. Calling such firms “platforms” and subjecting them to an analytical island reserved for “multi-sided markets” does not advance our understanding of media antitrust and regulatory policy issues.

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