Fostering Innovation in Converging Audiovisual Media Services

Abstract

The digitalization of media content and communication processes has been used as the main justification for an important turn in the design of regulations affecting various audiovisual media services and information industries, more in general. A brief case study presented in this chapter will testify that from the 1950s until the 1990s the United States’ regulator facilitated the introduction of fundamental innovations by preventing vertical mergers between different audiovisual media services. On the contrary, nowadays regulators in different parts of the world seems to agree that differentiating between different technological platforms can hinder the emergence of new multimedia services based on technology convergence as well as the establishment of inter-platform competition. Alternative economic principles and the rationale of the old regulatory regime are used here to challenge these mainstream arguments, which justify the raise of the new and ‘converged’ information conglomerates.