Research on factors affecting the performance of traditional public service broadcasters and emerging OTT streaming platforms

Abstract

and (2) ‘Entertainment’ programs, considering the ease of setting independent variables and the correlation between variables. As a result of the analysis, many channels are broadcasting more entertainment programs, and as the broadcasting time of entertainment programs increases, the annual audience share rises significantly. This means that public broadcasters can expect improved performance if they focus on supplying entertainment content like many OTT firms, and it can be a countermeasure against the movement to abolish license fees in countries around the world. On the other hand, this may cause market failure, that the supply of news, current affairs, and cultural programs, which are also linked to the purpose of the existence of public broadcasters, is sharply reduced. Therefore, the government and legislative bodies are required to prepare policies and laws regarding financial support for public broadcasters and regulation of airtime by genre by considering not only the public opinion of viewers but also the above-mentioned adverse effect. The second study analyzes the effects of 'Platform price (monthly subscription fee),’ 'M&A cases', and 'Content investment' on the number of subscribers and market share for major OTT platforms with a large number of subscribers in 7 countries for five years from 2015 to 2019. As a result of the analysis, it is found that the lower the platform price and the higher the number of M&A cases and content investment, the more positively affect the two business performances. In addition, OTT-specialized firms in the UK, Germany, France, Japan, and Korea do not increase the number of subscribers as much as OTT-specialized firms in the US, but those in the UK and Germany increase their market share more in their own countries than those in the US. Therefore, OTT service firms need to select and use strategies that suit them, considering their market position and financial conditions. In particular, OTT operators in Europe and Asia need to respond more strategically to the market expansion of global OTT companies in the US. In addition, the government and legislative organizations need to develop policies and bills considering not only the growing demand for OTT services from viewers but also fostering domestic cultural content and creating market environments where the various types of video content platforms can compete fairly.

This dissertation aims to conduct empirical research on the factors influencing the firm performance of public service broadcasters, one of the traditional broadcasting media in charge of supplying video content, and OTT streaming platforms, which have been globally spread over the past decade. At present, when various video media coexist in coopetition, this dissertation seeks significant strategies and desirable government policies necessary for firms’ survival and fostering a sustainable and fair market, respectively. To this end, the first study analyzes the effects of annual broadcasting time by program genre and content investment of TV channels of public service broadcasters in five European countries on audience share for 11 years from 2012 to 2022. The classification of genres is divided into two major categories: (1) ‘News, current affairs, and cultural’