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Comment by tootie

7 years ago

There are periods of concentration and entrepreneurship. Part of the market maturity lifecycle. As a market gets more well established, competitors become less differentiated and start competing on cost which leads to consolidation. This creates openings for upstarts to disrupt or open new markets.

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tootie

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siddboots  7 years ago

... and yet there is no shortage of examples of ownership being consistently more concentrated over time. Are we are right around the corner from seeing "upstarts" in the television, telecoms, and food manufacturing industries?

  • tootie  7 years ago

    Seriously? TV has been totally disrupted by streaming services. Music too. Some industries simply morph into utilities and get stuck in that space forever. Telecom will land there eventually.

    • dragonwriter  7 years ago

      > TV has been totally disrupted by streaming services.

      Has it?

      Let's look at the whole TV chain; traditionally, you've got as chain of consumer <- multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD; classically cable/satellite) <- channels <- studios, with a few channels available outside an MVDS by way of terrestrial broadcast.

      So, what has streaming done to break up consolidation, working back from the consumer?

      Well, at the MVPD level, it's added a few alternatives, but that weakens consolidation less than you'd think because you've got as major streaming players:

      - YouTube TV, controlled by one of the best biggest corporations on the planet, but a genuine new player in the MVPD industry.

      - PlayStation TV, controlled by a major player in TV studios and channels who wasn't previously in the MVPD business in the US.

      - Sling TV, owned by Dish Network, an existing MVPD (satellite) player

      - DIRECTV NOW, owned by AT&T, an existing MVPD (cable and satellite) player

      - Hulu with Live TV (owned primarily by a handful of major players in the TV content industry, two of which—Comcast and AT&T—are also major players are MVPD industry.)

      - Xfinity Instant TV from an existing major MVPD, and only to their ISP customers.

      Well, what about channels?

      You can get what amount to individual premium channels with decent first and sometimes third-party on-demand catalogs without and MVDP now, but is there less consolidation? Not really. There's a couple of big new independent players (e.g., Amazon, Netflix) and a lot of new brands offered (individually or jointly) by existing big players who continue to consolidate.

      Streaming hasn't really done anything to reverse TV consolidation.

    • siddboots  7 years ago

      I don't think that entirely speaks to my point. You were speaking of a natural cycle of conglomeration and entrepreneurship, yet there are many examples of markets that have only become more of an oligopoly over time. It seems to me that centralised ownership generally makes it harder for entrepreneurs to break into a market.