Consumer Favorites and the Design of News

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Xiang, Yi; Soberman, David
• 署名单位: China Europe International Business School; University of Toronto
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2013.1742
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 188-205
• 关键词: information processing; media competition; game theory

摘要

The objective of this paper is to better understand the factors that competitive news providers consider to design or deliver news programmes. The focus is broadcast news where, in any programming time period, a viewer watches (or consumes) one programme. We assume that each viewer is interested in a limited set of topics and that her utility only comes from the most interesting news she observes. The key questions we address are as follows: (a) Should firms adopt designs that facilitate the delivery of more information in their news programmes? (b) Does the decision of firms to implement such strategies depend on the complexity of the news programme (i.e., the number of news stories covered in the news product)? (c) How do such strategies influence competition? We show that firms may or may not benefit by providing better-designed news. The incentive to do this is strongly affected by the complexity of the news product and the intensity of competition between news providers.