Media Management and Economics 2008 Abstracts
Media Management and Economics Division
When Women Run the Newsroom: Management Change, Gender and the News • Randal Beam and Damon Di Cicco, University of Washington • This study examined content changes across time at 10 small daily newspapers during periods in which a woman replaced a man as editor or managing editor. It found that the mix of topics that the newspapers covered changed only minimally when the women succeeded the men in these senior news-management jobs. But the style of presenting the news changed, and the representation of women and non-elites in photos increased significantly.
An Exploration of Audience Preference of Theatrical and Non-Theatrical Channels • Jiyoung Cha, University of Florida • Even though movies use a sequential distribution, the competition between channels exists. Using an expanded theory of planned behavior, this study compares the factors affecting the intention to use four types of movie distribution channels. This study’s findings indicate that the Internet and video on demand compete in terms of the consumer values of price and convenience. Urgency and display resolution are important determinants of theater use.
Strategic Bundling of Telecommunications Services: A Comparative Study of Triple-Play Strategies in the Cable Television and Telephone Industries • Sylvia Chan-Olmsted and Miao Guo, University of Florida • This study surveys the practice of triple-play strategy and examines the roles of industry environment and firm resources in influencing the adoption of bundling strategies. It was found that firms in an industry with declining revenues for their core products would seek to incorporate high-growth new products into a bundle offering. There is also an interesting association between a more “focused” portfolio and success in venturing outside of the core product area in bundling practices.
Mobile Television Deployment Strategy: A Comparative Analysis of Mobile Operators and Television Broadcasters • Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, Sangwon Lee, and Heejung Kim, University of Florida • This paper examines the deployment and competition of mobile TV in South Korea between two leading contenders, TV broadcasters and mobile phone service providers. Specifically, the differences in adopted strategies between the two sets of competitors and factors affecting these strategic behaviors are scrutinized. The nature of rivalry between the two historically separated competitors offers insight on how firms with inherently different resources, industry conditions, and business models might compete in the era of convergence.
Factors Related to Journalist Job Satisfaction: Meta-Analysis and Path Model • Li-jing Arthur Chang and Brian L. Massey • Twenty correlates of journalists’ job satisfaction uncovered in past research were input into a meta-analysis to assess their relationships with the satisfaction variable. Next, a theoretical model including job satisfaction and its key correlates was tested through a path analysis. The confirmed model shows that journalists’ perceptions of their impact on their communities and their feelings about pay are strong predictors of job satisfaction. It shows satisfaction is a significant predictor of intentions to quit jobs.
Newsroom Preparedness: Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina • Sonya Duhe, University of South Carolina • This case study examines the impediments that newspaper outlets and television stations in two of the states hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina to covering the story. Through management surveys in Louisiana and Mississippi, the researcher reveals lessons learned and how the media might better prepare for the next natural or man-made disaster. Interestingly, while both Louisiana and Mississippi are hurricane prone areas, almost half of the respondents did not have a disaster plan in place.
An Empirical Analysis on Financial Performance of Bundling Strategies in the U.S. Cable Industry • Miao Guo and Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • This study investigates the effect of bundling strategy on the cable system operators’ financial performance in the United States. Based on the analysis of operating and financial performance of leading four cable system operators, we can see that bundling boosts the overall take rates for cable advanced products, such as digital video, high-speed Internet, and voice services.
Understanding Media Diversity: Structural and Organizational Variables Influencing Personnel Diversity in the Television Industry • Ann Hollifield and Clay Kimbro, University of Georgia • Diversity is a key management issue for media companies facing increasingly diverse audiences. This study uses FCC employment reports, Census data, and industry data over 30 years to examine the structural and organizational factors related to personnel diversity in U.S. television stations. The study finds external variables explain most variance in station-workforce diversity and draws on organization-diversity theory to conclude industry leaders don’t yet view workforce diversity as a strategic management issue.
Closing the Knowledge Gap in Financial Media Management • H. Y. Sonya Hsu and Steven Dick, University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Walter S. McDowell, University of Miami • Company financial statements, intended to monitor the ongoing health of a media enterprise, are dependent on the competent information sharing of non-financial managers. Although these managers may be experts in their own departments, they often lack a fundamental understanding of financial data gathering and reporting procedures. In cooperation with the Broadcast and Cable Financial Management Association (BCFM), the researchers examined the knowledge gap between media financial managers and other media managers.
Peer Consonance: Age Matters Among Teams Producing Two Late Local Newscasts for Two Stations • Kelly Kaufhold, University of Texas at Austin • This study surveyed and interviewed producing teams working on both traditional (11/10 p.m.) and shared (10/9 p.m.) late local newscasts alongside in a single newsroom, a growing business model. It measured the motivation of news producers to attract young viewers to local news. Not one producer cited viewers over 50 as their most important audience. There were clear correlations between the age and experience of producers and their motivation to attract young viewers.
Direct Broadcast Satellite: Does Consumer Switching Costs Matter? • Clay Kimbro, University of Georgia • This study examines and measures the effects of switching costs as a barrier to DBS entering the market to compete with cable. The study finds switching costs exist. The study also finds the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act of 1999 allows DBS and cable to become more substitutable products, which makes switching cost a more important factor in consumers’ decisions to switch products.
Newsroom Culture Changes Alter Our Understanding of How News Organizations Learn and React to Change • Damian Kostiuk, University of Missouri • An organization that cannot learn its successes or failures may have a very difficult time responding to change. Given that media companies have been and are continuing to endure a period of change, understanding how learning occurs within newsrooms may be critical to their success or failure.
Strategic Behaviors on Triple-play Offerings in Cable and Telephone Companies • Seonmi Lee, University of Florida • Technological convergence and the FCC’s competition-promoting policy have brought about triple-play offering services that combined video, voice, and data services in a single package in the telecommunication market. As cable and telephone industries offer similar bundles, the competition becomes severe. In this situation, the company commits “one minimum and one maximum” strategy to prevent its existing consumers from switching over to the competitors and to attract new consumers.
Reaching Readers Through Online News: A Pursuit of Profit or Legitimacy? • Wilson Lowrey and Chang Wan Woo, The University of Alabama; Jenn Burleson Mackay • This study pits traditional rational-choice economics against “new institutionalist” theory in an effort to explain managers’ adoption of new, reader-oriented online features, such as most popular story lists, reader video, blogs and sites that target subcommunities. According to new institutional theory, organizations pursue innovations in order to appear legitimate and to conform with other organizations in their environment. It is proposed here that news organizations are both institutional and financially strategic.
The Nonprofit Business Model: Empirical Evidence from the Magazine Industry • Miles Maguire, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh • This paper seeks to shed light on the nonprofit business model by considering empirical data from one area of the media industry where nonprofits make up a sizable segment: periodical publishing. The primary context for this study is the body of economic research on the tax-exempt sector and the effects of organizational structure on firm behavior. This theory is used to propose hypotheses about nonprofit periodicals, which are then tested.
Tease Me: A Content Analysis of Self-Promotion in Television Network News • Joy Mapaye, Hillary Lake and Kathleen M. Ryan, University of Oregon • This study investigates the self-promotion practices of ABC, CBS and NBC. Using content analysis, this study examines the management and marketing of the network band identity through teases and various self-promotion strategies. The research found the three major television networks used self-promotion frequently. In all, 1063 instances of self-promotion were recorded from the sample. Self-promotion made up 36% of the content in television network news.
Economic Viability and Moral Obligation in Promoting Media Diversity • Kim McCann, Bowling Green State University • The diversity offered by broadcast television has been heavily influenced by the economic viability of programming strategies, particularly the advertising-supported mechanism. Consequently, the broadcasters’ moral obligation to serve the public interest has been largely neglected in broadcast television. Drawing upon this central issue, the study explored the conceptual issue of media diversity, assessed it in U.S. broadcast television in terms of both supply and demand viewpoints, and reconceptualized it, including both social and economic considerations.
Cultural Fluidity: Weekly Newspaper Editors’ Strategies for Building Knowledge and Managing Change • Francois P. Nel, University of Central Lancashire and Jane B. Singer, University of Central Lancashire/University of Iowa • This study examines how British weekly newspaper editors, an understudied group with long-standing ties to “hyperlocal” communities, regard the challenges of building, transforming, and managing knowledge in the midst of sweeping media change. Drawing on literature from media sociology and knowledge management, it suggests that these veteran editors are profoundly uncertain about how to translate what they believe about journalism, and know about creating it, into successful delivery of new products to new audience.
Local Radio Station Group Ownership Efficiencies • Heather Polinsky, Central Michigan University • After the passage of the Telecommunication Act of 1996 a considerable number of radio owners consolidated stations into local and national station groups. Using data from 2007, a local radio station group efficiency hypothesis is examined. This study finds that as local station groups increase in size, the stations tend to be more efficient at attracting listeners and generating revenue, all else equal. These findings suggest the existence of local station group efficiencies.
Casual Journalists: Strategies of Freelance Workers in American Television News • Kathleen M. Ryan, University of Oregon • Currently, up to 60% of on- and off-camera workers at the major three U.S. television networks are freelancers. This major shift in traditional network news employment trends has been relatively ignored by researchers. Studies of European television news workers have found freelancers unhappy in their jobs and conclude that freelancing is bad for the worker (Ursell 1998/2003, Dex et all 2000, Thynne 2000, Ertel et al 2005).
Home Country Regulatory Effects on Transnational Advertising Agencies: Implications for Media Companies • Dan Shaver and Mary Alice Shaver, Jonkoping International Business School • This study draws on data from the performance of the largest global advertising agencies to examine issues related to the economic performance of transnational advertising firms. It examines the impact of regulation related to starting and closing businesses, trade restrictions, tax structure, government expenditures, price stability, restrictions on foreign investment, and regulation of the banking system on firm’s diversification and success in foreign markets. Suggestions are made for applications to other mass media industries.
Blogging from the Management Perspective: A Follow-up Study • Mary Lou Sheffer, Texas Tech University and Brad Schultz, University of Mississippi • This was a follow-up study to research on blogging implementation in the local media. Previous research (Schultz & Sheffer, 2007) suggested high levels of journalist resistance to blogging. This research focused on management attitudes, and found insufficient management strategies and communication related to blogging to overcome journalist resistance. Managers have asked journalists to blog, but not taken the necessary steps to support its success, which suggests difficulty in implementation and adoption.
Communication as a Managerial Competency – the “Glue” that Keeps South African Mainstream Media Newsrooms Together? • Elaine Steyn, University of Oklahoma and Theunis Steyn, Cameron University • This paper outlines dimensions of communication as a managerial competency in South Africa’s mainstream media newsrooms. It highlights differences on the importance and implementation of this competency, given media management transformation in a post-apartheid society. Moderately and practically significant effect sizes were calculated between reporters’ and first-line managers’ experiences on all dimensions of this competency. Results emphasized the need to improve first-line news managers’ communication skills to unify newsrooms and improve journalism output.
Exploring Broadcast Networks’ Strategy on Alternative Platforms—A Resource Based View (RBV) Approach • Yan Yang and Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, University of Florida • This case analysis uses the resource based view (RBV) model to study the broadcast networks’ strategy in implementing and promoting alternative platforms—webcasting on the network websites and video download on iTunes and NBC Direct. It examines the internal assets of the networks—content, distribution, financial, human and technological resources, and how they influence the strategy formation and implementation.
Repeat Viewing in China: An Expansion of Determinants of TV Program Choice • Lin Yao • Repeat viewing focuses on the extent to which an audience for one program watches subsequent episodes of the same program, and is an important concept in “models of choice” theories of audience behavior. Research has examined repeat viewing in the U.S. and Europe, but no known studies have examined this phenomena in China, which is the largest and fastest-growing television market in the world.
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