Competition concerns and definition issues in the ever evolving AVMS market: the Belgian case

Details

Supervisors

de Ghellinck, Elisabeth

Faculty

Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales, politiques et de communication

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences économiques, orientation générale

Abstract

In recent years the audiovisual sector has been incurring a large revolution due to the introduction of new actors. Thanks to the development of a faster internet infrastructure, it has become possible to stream high quality audiovisual contents via the internet. Those new players are called over-the-top (OTT), since they transmit signals from their servers to consumers by free riding internet service providers’ (ISP) infrastructures. The aim of this study is to understand the competition and definition concerns in the audiovisual media services market. The definition of the relevant audiovisual market has become difficult for several reasons. First, laws and jurisprudence do not always define a clear framework. Second, traditional tools used to assess substitutability between services have demonstrated some inadequacies and showed a need to review the current analytical framework offered by the economic literature. Third, the structure of the digital market and the relationship between digital actors present on different layers is usually overlooked, not only when applying traditional tools, but also when addressing the net neutrality debate. The Belgian television market case will be used in order to go through to these new issues.