Ownership, CATV and Expenditures for Local Television News

Competition, conduct, and ratings in local television news: Applying the industrial organization model

“…Despite the study's limitations, the findings are consistent with earlier studies that founda relationship between competitionand staff size, budget, and time given to news (Busterna, 1980 and "Television Station Ownership," 1988; Lacy, Atwater, and Qin, 1989). This study also establishes the linkbetween hours of local news per day and ratings and suggests the need for further research into the relationship between conduct and performance variables.…”

“…Results indicated that stations that operated in markets with less competition charged higher news prices. Busterna (1980 and"TdevisionStationOwnership,"1988) used competition, measured by the number of local stations, as a control variable while examining ownership and local television news content. He found that competition was related to staff size and minutes of local news.…”

Theoretical and Practical Considerations in Operationalizing Newspaper and Television News Competition

“…Chamberlin (1954) said counting the number of sellers in an area does not measure competition well. Nevertheless, the measure has been used successfully to gauge the impact of newspaper competition on electoral outcomes (Vermeer, 1992) and diversity of public opinion (Lasorsa, 1991), as well as local television news competition impact on content (Busterna, 1980(Busterna, , 1988 and financial expenditures (Lacy, Atwater, Qin, & Powers, 1988).…”

Competition and the allocation of resources for local television news

“…Although research into newspaper competition has focused on content, studies about television news competition have tended to deal with price of advertising and audience share (see Batcs> 1985;Prisuta, 1979;and Wirth and Wollert, 1984). Two earlier studies used competition as a control variable while looking at the impact of ownership on local television news budgets and staff sizes (Busterna, 1978 and, but most studies examining the content of local news have tended not to examine its relationship to competition (see, for example, Smith, 1984;and Atwater, 1986). The purpose of this study is to attempt to connect local television competition to news content by applying a concept from the study of newspaper competition called the "financial commitment theory" (Litman and Bridges, 1986).…”

“…Busterna (1980) used the number of commercial television stations in a market as a measure of competition. This was a control variable used while examining the impact of ownership and cable use on expenditures for local television news.…”