Competitions between OTT TV platforms and traditional television in Taiwan: A Niche analysis

This study examines how OTT TV and cable TV compete in Taiwan through an online survey conducted in March 2016 that collected a total of 620 qualified responses. In terms of niche breadth, our findings indicate that OTT TV scores higher than traditional TV for all seven dimensions, with the greatest difference manifesting in the dimension of convenience. For the niche overlap, results show that OTT TV and traditional TV share a high level of similarity on amusement and ease of use. Overall, OTT TV's competitive superiority surpasses that of traditional TV in all dimensions. Finally, in light of program types, news, movies, and sports effectively predict users' gratification with cable TV, whereas dramas and movies are predictive of users' gratification with OTT TV. Implications for research and practices are discussed herein.     

Diversification of cable television firms into broadband products

This research provides a new perspective to investigate the broadband diffusion in eight states of the U.S. by studying the two-stage entry decisions, namely, upgrading and subsequent product decisions, by the cable television system operators, one of the early dominant players in the broadband market, and examines the role of competition, market characteristics and firm heterogeneity in the cable company's decisions in a dynamic setting. Comparing the empirical results of the decision models of both stages can give new insights into the dynamics of broadband diffusion. The empirical results show that the subsequent product decision is affected more by the demand determinants, while the upgrading decision is affected more by the cost determinants. The results also indicate that policies which aim to reduce the entry cost such as a low city fee can largely encourage firms to upgrade the network, while subsequent policies that help boost the demand can help firms diversify into new digital services early. The effectiveness of competition policy in the broadband diffusion is confirmed in both stages. Strategic responses by cable firms to the presence of RBOCs are more noticeable in the second-staged product decision than in the first-staged upgrading decision.     

THE INFLUENCE OF EXPERT REVIEWS ON CONSUMER DEMAND FOR EXPERIENCE GOODS: A CASE STUDY OF MOVIE CRITICS*

An inherent problem in measuring the influence of expert reviews on the demand for experience goods is that a correlation between good reviews and high demand may be spurious, induced by an underlying correlation with unobservable quality signals. Using the timing of the reviews by two popular movie critics, Siskel and Ebert, relative to opening weekend box office revenue, we apply a difference‐in‐differences approach to circumvent the problem of spurious correlation. After purging the spurious correlation, the measured influence effect is smaller though still detectable. Positive reviews have a particularly large influence on the demand for dramas and narrowly‐released movies.     

Piracy and box office movie revenues: Evidence from Megaupload

In this paper we evaluate the heterogeneous effects of online copyright enforcement. We ask whether the unexpected shutdown of the popular file hosting platform Megaupload had a differential effect on box office revenues of wide-release vs. niche movies. Identification comes from a comparison of movies that were available on Megaupload to those that were not. We show that only movies that premiere in a relatively large number of theaters benefitted from the shutdown of Megaupload. The average effect, however, is negative. We provide suggestive evidence that this result is driven by information externalities. The idea is that online piracy acts as a mechanism to spread information about product characteristics across consumers with different valuations for the product. Our results question the effectiveness of blanket public anti-piracy policy, not only from a consumer perspective, but also from a producer perspective.     

微电影 一个产业生态变革的开始

贾樟柯搬了张凳子坐在导演位置,仔细看着眼前小屏幕里的每一个细节,神情却和往常略有不同——在这组名为《爱的联想》的微电影里他并不是导演,而是监制。贾樟柯曾执导过多部获奖电影,首部长片《小武》被法国《电影手册》赞誉为摆脱了中国电影的常规,是标志着中国电影复兴与活力的影片,2011年被第68届威尼斯国际电影节"地平线单元"邀请担任评委会主席。     

The impact on broadband access to the Internet of the dual ownership of telephone and cable networks

In Portugal, until recently, the telecommunications incumbent offered broadband access to the Internet, both through digital subscriber line and cable modem. We estimate the impact on broadband access to the Internet of the structural separation of these two businesses. Using a panel of consumer level data and a random effects mixed logit model, we estimate the price elasticities of demand and the marginal costs of broadband access to the Internet. Based on these estimates, we simulate the effect of structural separation on prices and social welfare. Our estimates indicate that structural separation would cause a substantial welfare increase. These results raise questions about the policy of some countries of allowing the dual ownership of telephone and cable networks.     

Cinematic Explosion: New Products,Unpredictabilty and Realized Quality in the Digital Era

While file sharing has undermined firms’ ability to generate revenue for their products, other technological change has reduced entry barriers in cultural industries, with substantial positive impacts on the availability of new books and recorded music. Unpredictability of product quality is a generic feature of cultural goods, including music, books and movies, so an infusion of new products holds the possibility of bringing not just low‐appeal products but also new products that consumers find highly appealing. This paper explores the effects of reduced costs of production, promotion and distribution in the motion picture industry, asking four questions. First, we document substantial growth in the number of movies brought to market, particularly since the early 2000's. Second, we document growth in institutions by which consumers can discover new movies, many of which are produced outside of the major studios and not released in theaters. Third, we show that the new independent movies account for a growing share of commercially successful movies. Finally, we present evidence, based on both critical assessments and usage, that recent vintages are more appealing to consumers than earlier offerings. These findings on movies echo developments documented elsewhere for recorded music and books.     

The stalemate of cable digital switchover: A study of competition effects and deregulation

This paper addresses the phenomenon of delayed cable digitization in Taiwan and reports the results of a longitudinal analysis, determining that (1) inter-platform competition, primarily from internet protocol television (IPTV), generates a strong and positive impact on the digitization of cable service after it acquires numerous customers; (2) the installed cable base induces economies of scale that increase its digital penetration; (3) the overbuild of the equivalent-size rivalry can increase digital adoption, whereas unequal-sized competition might reversely decrease it; and (4) the monthly flat fee charged to customers does not influence digital adoption. In addition, this paper presents a discussion on the policy instruments derived from econometric results. Although repealing the horizontal integration cap in the cable TV industry could generate economies of scale, doing so may encourage monopolization over several franchises. The efficacy of intra-platform competition is reserved only for certain cases. Combining the results of these analyses reveals that inter-platform competition most effectively stimulates cable operators’ digital conversion. Hence, regulators should create a level playing field among various TV platforms, such as equal programming access and open standards, to ensure a high degree of cable digitization     

Self-regulation vs state regulation: Evidence from cinema age restrictions

This paper studies the effect of self-regulation on the leniency of cinema age restrictions using cross-country variation in the classifications applied to 1922 movies released in 31 countries between 2002 and 2011. Our data show that restrictive classifications reduce box office revenues, particularly for movies with wide box office appeal. These data also show that self-regulated ratings agencies display greater leniency than state-regulated agencies when classifying movies with wide appeal. However, consistent with theoretical models of self-regulation, the degree of leniency is small because it is not costly for governments to intervene and regulate ratings themselves.     

A theoretical and empirical study on China's transition to digital TV

This paper explores the impact of policies made by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and TV on China's transition to digital TV. The method of stakeholder analysis is used to present a theoretical study on the digital transition, with a quantitative model analyzing the welfare change of three segments of consumers. A simultaneous-equation model is used to study the characteristics of the demand and supply of digital TV in China. It is argued that the policy of uniform transition that ignores coordination among stakeholders does harm to consumers’ benefits, and the healthy and sustainable development of China's cable digital TV industry. In an introductory phase of digital TV, educating consumers with convenient and pleasing experience is essential, and restructuring cable operators in a market-oriented way is also critical for developing countries like China.     

Enforcement and Control of Piracy,Copying, and Sharing in the Movie Industry

We review strategies that movie distributors have used to cope with piracy, copying, and sharing of movies in the United States in four categories: “hard goods” commercial piracy, consumer theft of pay TV signals, consumer copying and sharing of videos and pay TV, and (mostly in prospect) Internet file sharing. In the past, distributors have mainly sought to raise costs of engaging in these activities by increasing legal jeopardy, advantaging anti-copy technology, and reducing original sources of supply. They appear to have effectively reduced or contained most piracy, copying, and sharing of movies in the U.S., at least with analog media. Movie distributors are following similar strategies with digital media, including Internet file sharing. Digital media raise the stakes because of lower costs of copying or sharing and higher quality of outputs. Digital outputs are not always as high quality as source originals, however, and digital rights management (DRM) technologies potentially improve distributor control. The movie studios now face technological, demand, and political uncertainties in the U.S., notably in maintaining or achieving technically compatible DRM systems to control file sharing and PPV/VOD copying. Implications for foreign markets and directions for research are discussed. Some sections of this article draw substantially on David Waterman (2005a). Hollywood’s road to riches (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).     

基于中外影视剧字幕学习外语系统的研究与实践

利用影视字幕学习外语是一种很好的方式,也受外语学习者的喜爱,但观看时不自觉地就只顾情节,难以将注意力放在外语学习上,学习效果不佳。将计算机技术与外语自主学习有机整合,对影视字幕采集,利用基于中外影视剧字幕学习外语系统,根据需要以多种方式输出srt格式或Word文档,作为脚本保存下来或加载到视频中,影视与脚本相呼应,可以有效提高学习效率。     

Finnish Homes—Through Passages or Traps?

This is a study of tenure choice, housing demand and mobility in the submarkets of the Helsinki metropolitan area. The empirical analysis is based on data on households, type of tenure, housing characteristics and mobility for a sample of Helsinki residents at the end of 1980s. According to our results the probability of owning is affected not only by user costs of alternative tenure forms but also by permanent income and demographic variables. Results from the tenure specific housing demand models indicate that there are non-neutralities in the housing markets. Permanent income elasticities of housing demand are clearly positive in owner-occupied sector and systematically higher than in the rented sector. The demand for owner-occupied housing depends very strongly on the age of the household head. User cost per housing unit affects housing demand negatively in both tenure forms. Effective demand is greater in private housing sector. The results suggest that owner-occupied living is preferred with heavily subsidized households the least likely to move. In the rental sector, where the probability of moving is higher, it is also true that the most heavily subsidized households are the least likely to move.     

The Market Structure of Broadband Telecommunications

The recent growth of the Internet is creating markets for broadband telecommunications networks. In the past, virtually all such 'infrastructure' networks have been subject to government regulation. Two reasons advanced for this market intervention are (i) such networks constitute a natural monopoly, and (ii) to achieve 'universal service', in which all citizens have access to services. In this paper, we develop a model and estimate it using engineering data which tests if these two hypotheses are likely to obtain for broadband networks. We find that oligopolistic competition is likely to emerge for demand levels approaching that of today's cable television.     

有线电视光缆传输系统指标的分析与设计

介绍了有线电视网中ＡＭ 光缆干线传输综合指标的分析与设计。由于ＤＦＢ激光器间的非线性有较大差异,故引入了光链路这一参数。当把这一参数引入有线电视光缆干线设计时,可根据有线电视光缆系统不同传输距离、光接点的分配指标和光缆干线传输系统的实际情况,计算光链路损耗,以确定光端设备的选型,从而进一步确定光缆干线传输系统的设计,使得有线电视总系统指标给以保证     

谈中国古装电影中的服装设计特征

影视服装是展现影视艺术风格、烘托剧情和人物特征的重要元素,文章以我国古装电影艺术作品为分析对象,分析探讨了近半个世纪中国古装武侠电影的服饰设计特征。     

Mortgage Insurance Adoption in the Netherlands

Individuals tend to underinsure on low probability, high consequence risks. Using a survey data set from a unique institutional context, we provide an assessment of the underinsurance puzzle by studying mortgage insurance adoption among Dutch homeowners. The results indicate that the demand for mortgage insurance is affected by risk exposure, type of mortgage lender, and the involvement of financial advisors. We document that wealthier and younger mortgagors are more likely to insure. However, locus of control, house price expectations, and precautionary savings are not related to insurance demand. Finally, we find evidence that borrower (over)confidence negatively affects the likelihood that insurance is bought.     

Two-way cable television trial — a preliminary report

The Spartanburg two-way cable project of the Rand Corporation consists of a series of experiments to determine the benefits of interactive cable for the delivery of public services. The work is supported by the Research Applied to National Needs (RANN) programme of the National Science Foundation. Like the other projects funded in the NSF cable research programme, the Spartanburg project is intended to provide data on the costs and benefits of cable television systems that can be used both to receive and send signals from a home, agency, or business.