Evaluating the Product Portfolio of NHK, the Japanese Public Service Broadcaster: A Propensity Score Matching Approach

Abstract

ABSTRACTPublic service broadcasters (PSBs) around the world are restructuring their constituencies to meet the new challenges of increasing media diversification. New PSB management approaches include the diversification of transmission channels and development of contents. The optimum deployment of distribution channels and content genres, referred to as Portfolio Management, is now a major management priority and will provide the most efficient strategic allocation of management resources. In this article, we take NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai), Japan’s PSB, as a research target and analyze and evaluate its portfolio management. NHK has introduced the Value for Money (VFM) index through the measurement of WTP (Willingness to Pay), and has initiated channel-genre matrix management. This study aims to estimate the WTP of viewers’ reception fees from viewer surveys, and then distribute these WTP values to the channel-genre matrix. We then use Propensity Score Matching (PSM) to evaluate how NHK’s channel-genre matrix management is oriented toward public service value by dividing the sample population into high citizen orientation and low citizen orientation groups, and examining how the distributed WTP to genres differs between the two groups.