TV & Radio Industry Coopetition Research Based On Systems Economics

Cooperation and Competition (Coopetition) is a new operational strategycentering on the core of complementation, the foundation of coordination and the goalof mutual benefits. Faced with the termination in the era of channel monopoly and theinnovation of transmission technology, coopetition is gradually taking the place ofcounter competition and becoming the significant choice for the TV & Radio Industryto survive and expand in the future.Taking guidance from systems science and method from systems economics, andcombining positive analysis with normative analysis, qualitative analysis withquantitative analysis, static analysis with dynamic analysis, and induction withdeduction, the dissertation first expounds the systems economics principle ofcoopetition, setting this as a frame for analysis, and states the necessity and feasibility,the subject and background, and the type and form for the TV & Radio Industry tocarry out coopetition. Further, it vertically analyzes the self-organizing evolutionaryprocess of the TV & Radio Industry coopetition in China, including the form, path,drive of evolution, and horizontally measures the resource-niche of the TV & RadioIndustry system and the overall efficiency of coopetition in China, demonstrates theinterior relationship and influencing mechanism between the resource-niche andcoopetition, and evaluates the operation performance of coopetition in China. On sucha basis, taking reference from the related international experiences, it proposes train ofthoughts for the development of the TV & Radio Industry coopetition in China. Tomake a sum, the dissertation obtains the following primary research outcomes:1. Market competition has experienced the evolutionary process from countercompetition to coopetition. The evolutionary process from counter competition tocoopetition reflects the generation of "systematic economic effect". Coopetition is aresource allocation process based on complementarities, consisting of the low-levelcompetition and the high-level cooperation of economic systems. With the notion of"resource-niche", the theoretic models of coopetition mechanism, includingcompetition repulsion model, cooperation substituting competition repulsion model,coopetition quantity characteristic model, etc. can be achieved. Openness,non-equilibrium, non-linearity and fluctuation are the presuppositions and motives forthe self-organizing evolution of coopetition. Technology, knowledge, culture andsociety, and institutions, laws and standards are the key order parameters dominatingthe self-organizing evolution of coopetition.2. The TV & Radio Industry system is an organic integration made up from thevarious sub-sections of the TV & Radio Industry and their economic relations.Features of the TV & Radio Industry system can be illustrated from the view ofeconomics and systems science. The economic features are displayed in terms ofnetwork and natural monopoly;systemic features include hierarchy and holography,eigen-temporal scale and eigen-spatial scale, non-linearity and non-equilibrium,mechanism and self-organization, and so forth. The above features demonstrate thenecessity and feasibility of carrying out coopetition in the TV & Radio Industry.According to different classification criteria, there are different classificationsystems in the TV & Radio Industry system. Government, other media, same-typemedia, enterprises (advertisers), other industries and overseas media groups altogethermake up the media ecology for the TV & Radio Industry system under theglobalization circumstance. The composition of TV & Radio Industry system andmedia ecology further identifies the subject and background for the TV & RadioIndustry system coopetition.Starting from the media ecology of the TV & Radio Industry system, based on therelationship between different nodes on the industry chain and value chain, the TV &Radio Industry system coopetition can be classified into three basic types: horizontal,vertical and trans-industrial coopetition. Quasi-allied organization, joint enterprise,strategic alliance, media group and syndicate are the typical forms of the TV & RadioIndustry system coopetition.3. To certain extent, the industrialization of the TV & Radio Industry displays theevolutionary process of the TV & Radio Industry coopetition in China. In terms ofevolutionary form, this process manifests as the succession of "single structure –division structure – modularization structure", i.e. the competition of wholly same andsingle structure – the competition combining horizontal division, vertical division andmixed division – the competition featured with business modularization, competenceelements modularization and organization structure modularization. In terms ofevolutionary path, the process follows the rule of system deepening and systemwidening, which manifest as the extension of industry chain or value chain and theexpansion of across-media, across-region, and across-industry respectively in theprocess of coopetition. In terms of evolutionary drive, this process reflects thetransition of dominating order parameters, i.e. the succession process of primary,intermediate, advanced and symbiotic order parameters.4. According to the mechanism and models of coopetition, taking the contentresource-niche of different level TV media as examples, the resource-niche of the TV& Radio Industry system in China is measured with mathematical methods, on whichbasis, the internal relationship between and influencing mechanism of the TV &Radio Industry system's (including the sub-systems') resource-niche and the TV &Radio Industry coopetition have been studied. The finding shows that the contentresource-niche breadth reflects the market structure of different level TV mediacoopetition;the content resource-niche overlapping value (competition coefficient)reflects the general situation of different level TV media competition;and the contentresource-niche depth (the specialization degree of the resource-niche) reflects thedirections and strategies of different level TV media coopetition.Further, taking 5 listed TV & Radio corporations as a sample, the overallefficiency of the TV & Radio Industry system (including the sub-systems) coopetitionin China is examined with financial analysis. The finding displays that thecomprehensive performance of the TV & Radio Industry system coopetition isrelatively high, and the collectivized operation is highly effective;meanwhile, in viewof the relevant relationship between coopetition type and coopetition performance, thehorizontal coopetition performance is rather stable with a rising tendency, while withthe furthering in vertical coopetition and trans-industrial coopetition, itscomprehensive performance appears to be unstable even with a declining tendency;inaddition, in view of the industry chain, the overall performance of platform operationsystem is generally higher than that of content production system and contentintegration system. Certainly, it is necessary to take influencing factors like policy,advertisement earning and affiliated transactions into consideration when drawing theabove conclusions. At the same time, attentions should be attributed to regionaldifference and some outstanding problems with internal governance and managementsystem when making evaluation on the performance of collectivized coopetition.5. Highly developed market economy and mature industrialized operation haveprovided broad background and rich content for the TV & Radio Industry coopetitionin the west countries. Viewed from specific operational experiences, the matureoperational forms include syndicate, media group, and so forth;and the typicaloperational strategies include resource-niche separation, resource-niche specialization,core resource integration, etc..6. Train of thoughts of the TV & Radio Industry coopetition in China can beillustrated into guiding principle, operational form, mechanism design, operationalstrategy and other aspects, which can be detailed as the follows:The guiding principle for the TV & Radio Industry coopetition covers two aspects.From the perspective of development, it is to facilitate the forming of dominatingorder parameters and to promote the self-organizing evolution of coopetition. Fromthe perspective of reality, it is to set up the conceiving mechanism for coopetition withthe core of resource-niche and to speed up resource integration.Suggestions to the operational form of the TV & Radio Industry coopetitioninclude: for syndicate, to carry out specialized management and market control on TVand radio programs;and for media group, to establish the internal governancestructure combining party committee leadership with corporation governancestructure, and set up the management system combining decentralized structure ofbusiness sectors with decentralized structure of holding companies. Networkorganization and enterprise ecological group are the future trends in the evolution ofthe TV & Radio Industry coopetition form. There are mutual facilitation andtransformation between them and the traditional coopetition forms;to certain extent,there even may be mutual penetration and convergence, thus making up the spiralevolutionary process of coopetition forms.With game theory and mechanism design theory, detailed train of thoughts andmethods of mechanism design for the TV & Radio Industry coopetition based ontransferable utility can be put forward. Its key notion is to build the coordinating andincentive mechanism with the core of a fair and effective profit division project and ascientific and reasonable member conduct criterion;on the basis of conforming toindividual rationality, to seek the agreement between the individual benefits and theoverall benefits of the TV & Radio Industry coopetition systems;and therefore toobtain the overall optimization of the coopetition systems.The operational strategies for the TV & Radio Industry coopetition includeresource-niche strategy and resource integration strategy. The essence ofresource-niche strategy is to utilize the particular relationships of all coopetitionparties in resource-niche to realize the goal of multi-win. It can be detailed asresource-niche separation strategy, resource-niche specialization strategy,resource-niche shift strategy, etc.. Resource integration strategy reflects the process inwhich diverse kinds of advantageous resources are scientifically integrated andrationally allocated. It covers hard, soft, and soft-hard resource integration strategies.