Platform Mergers: Lessons from a Case in the Digital TV Market
Posted: 29 Apr 2018 Last revised: 5 May 2022
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Advertising Competition in the Free-to-Air TV Broadcasting Industry
Date Written: April 12, 2018
Abstract
We contribute to the analysis of mergers in two-sided markets, in which a platform provides its service for free on one side but obtains all its revenues from the other. A structural model allowing for multi-homing of advertisers is developed to assess a decision of the French competition authority, which approves the merger of the broadcasting services of TV channels but prohibits the merger of their advertising sales services through a behavioral remedy. We show that ignoring the interaction between the two sides of platforms in designing competition or regulatory policy can result in unexpected outcomes.
Keywords: merger, remedy, two-sided market, platform, TV, advertising
JEL Classification: K21, L10, L40, L82, M37
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation