Media Mergers – fusion

Reviewing media mergers may be more complicated than reviewing other mergers because of the huge variety of possible media content and the two-sided market aspect of many media, i.e. those earning advertising revenue. A wide variety of content means that market definition is rendered more complex. The two-sided market characteristic has important and sometimes far from obvious impacts on how mergers affect economic efficiency, media plurality and content diversity. Vertical integration can produce real efficiencies in media markets notably when it eliminates a double-marginalisation problem but it can sometimes create competition problems as far as access to content and final delivery to the consumer are concerned. This document comprises proceedings in the original languages of a Roundtable on Media Mergers which was held by the Competition Committee in May 2003.