Media Markets Defy Definition
By Travis Siebrass
The media market is more competitive than ever, a Wheaton College economics professor told a class of senior College of Journalism and Mass Communications majors.
Seth Norton, Norris A. Aldeen professor of business at Wheaton College in Illinois, said new forms of media are expanding the market, which will affect everyone in the media business.
"For people in the existing media it may cause some problems," he said. "It will affect your life, too."
"I view it favorably, and most people view it favorably as consumers."
Norton addressed the Mass Media and Society class Oct. 17 while in Lincoln to visit his brother, journalism Dean Will Norton.
Consumers have more options than ever to get news, Norton said.
A market is no longer defined by just a town's newspaper, he said. Viewership of TV stations and use of the Internet are also shaping the market.
"It gets tricky as to what constitutes a market," he said. "I don't know the exact answer to that."
Because people are seeking different media sources, like the Internet, media monopolies are weakened, Norton said.
"Substitution is an inherent human characteristic," he said. "When people run into a problem, they substitute."
Consumer substitution and the difficulty of defining a media market geographically are making it tougher for the Federal Communications Commission to decide whether it should allow more concentration of media ownership, Norton said.
Media conglomerates like The New York Times and Chicago Tribune, companies that own newspapers, radio and television stations, aren't true conglomerates because they aren't expanding into other industries, Norton said.
Media conglomerates tend to be narrower than traditional conglomerates in other industries, but they are getting broader by going into movie production and the Internet, Norton said.
Success - or lack of it - for media conglomerates will "emerge in more of a Darwinian struggle," Norton said.
"That's something a competitive struggle will give us a better picture of overtime," he said. "I do know that serious restrictions may not be healthy."
