| Comparing to one-sided market, two-sided markets are characterized by the presence of two distinct users and by a price structure to"get both sides on board". There is a kind of platform firm whichs enable interactions between two-sided end-users by providing the products or serves. These markets, we called, are two-sided markets. Examples of two-sided markets readily come to mind, such as bank payment card system (Visa, Master) courting cardholders and merchants, operating system (Windows, Unix) courting application developers and users, and electronic transaction platform (ebay, Taobao) courting buyers and sellers.From the industrial character, the media industry is a typical industry with the characteristic of"two-sided markets". Media acts as the platform for consumers and advertiser, there are two-sided network externalities between the consumers and advertiser. The dissertation intensively explores the choices of pricing modes, multi-homing and price competition, the quantities of advertising, the transaction mode between media and content providers, the media merger and the industrial regulation based on the theory of two-sided markets and the character of media industry. Although the traditional study has studied these above questions, some of them did not take the cross-network externalities between the advertising and consumer into account, basing on the"one-sided market", no taking so the conclusion may be unfit to the two-sided platform character of media. Hence, the dissertation on the"two-sided markets"is not only the makeup of the traditional study of the media economics and the attempt of the media industrial economics, also been as the enrichment of the two-sided markets theory, which offers a theoritical method for future research on such industries with two-sided markets character; but also have positive effect on the competitive strategy of media firms and the sound industrial policy of the governments.Nowadays, the study for media industry has rinsed up recently, the themes are the operation, management, industrialization of media. There were few fruits in the development mechanisms of media with the methods of modernistic industrial organization theory. Based on the traditional media economics, The dissertation normatively analyzes some critical problems, such as the choices of pricing modes, multi-homing and price competition, the quantities of advertising, the transaction mode between media and content providers, the media merger and the industrial regulation, and has gained some fruits. The dissertation may be an attempt to the theory of media two-sided markets..The main contents and conclusions are summarized as follows:1. On the basis of the summary of the two-sided markets theory, the dissertation analyzes the"two-sided markets"characteristic of media industry, and summarizes the research of media industry, points these shortages, makes the following research based on the two-sided markets.2. Two-sided end-users'prices are the most important competitive strategy of media firms, which are the strategic action to attract the two-sided users The dissertation examines the exiting price modes, constructs a model of two-sided vertically differentiated markets, explores the optimal pricing strategy under the different modes and the optimal choice of pricing mode. The results show the optimality of the pricing modes depends on the relative value ratio between the two-sided users'benefits from media. Lower the relative value ratio imply the monopolist media will choose the two-side bundle price mode; the increase of relative value ratio means the two-sided bundle free price mode, the profits of media depends more on the advertisers; for sufficiently relative high value ratio, the media will choose the advertising-supported price mode, its profits will only be based on the advertising fees.3. The advertisers'multi-homing has become common in the media industry, it makes a significant difference to media price competition. The dissertation examines the influences on the media price competition and profits of advertisers'multi-homing, constructs a model of media price competition under the advertisers'single-homing and advertisers'multi-homing structure based on horizontal differentiated markets. The results show the advertising fees is higher than the user fees of consumers, the advertisers subsidizes consumers, and an increase in the number of the multi-homing advertisers will enlarger the subsidies. However, an increase in the number of the multi-homing advertisers will deduce the media's profits under the advertisers'single-homing and increase the profits under the advertisers'multi-homing.4. The levels of advertising are one of the competitive strategy of media firms and it determines the profits of media firms. The dissertation builds the competitive model of advertising to find the effects of consumers'attitude to advertising and advertisers'access ways on the advertising strategy of media firms, analyzes the competitive equilibrium and compares it to the social optimal levels under the advertisers'single-homing or multi-homing. The results also show under the advertisers'single-homing or multi-homing, an increase in the proportion of ad-avoiders will increase the advertising fees; under the advertisers'single-homing, an increase in the proportion of ad-avoiders will increase the medias'profits and the competitive advertising equilibriums are consistent with the social optimum; and under the advertisers'multi-homing, an increase in the proportion of ad-avoiders will deduce the medias'profits and identify the precise conditions on the proportions of ad-avoiders.5. There are two different operation modes of media platform: merchant mode ( one-sided market transaction mode) and middle man mode ( two-sided markets transaction mode). The paper explore the content providers'choice of single-homing and multi-homing dealing, and the transaction mode choices to media platform and the content providers. The results demonstrate that the content providers can choose single-homing on the one-sided market transaction mode and multi-homing dealing on two-sided markets transaction mode. When the gross consumer surplus created by the content are little, the content providers will choose single-homing dealing, on the contrary, the choice is multi-homing dealing. The choice of transaction mode to media platform and the content providers depend on the content providers'access ways to platform. When the content providers choose single-homing, they will prefer the one-sided markets transaction mode, whereas media platform wish the two-sided markets transaction mode. When the content providers choose the multi-homing dealing, they will prefer the two-sided markets transaction mode, whereas the preferences of two media platforms conflict. 6. The media industry all over the world has experienced the merger and concentration of media. The media firms have been merged and reformed in the developed country, there are media-group action in our country. The dissertation analyzes the merger strategy of media and its economic effects, analyzes the effects on the media profits and advertisers of merger and concentration, and compares the levels of advertising to the socially optimal levels. The results show the media's merger and concentration can result in more profits to media and not lower the profits of advertisers, because it results in lower price per advertising, more advertising and more profits of advertisers. Relative to social optimum, there is underprovision of advertising if there are only few advertisers.7. Along with the deregulation and free entry of media industry all over the world, the media firms compete intensely. Based on the two-sided markets theory, the dissertation explores the"market performance"of deregulation of media industry with the Salop circular city model of product differentiation, and analyzes the ways how to set down the levels of advertising and to achieve the social optimum. The results show there is the nature of"market failure"in the deregulation media industry, such as the extent of entry and the less advertising compared with the social optimum. It shows the deregulation of media industry does not indeed result in the increase of social welfare and performance, we should still carry the"moderate regulation"into execution.The main innovations include:The dissertation analyzes some critical problems to identify the internal mechanism and law of media development with the network externalities, two-sided markets and normative Game theory, supplying the theoretically bases and policy suggestions. The dissertation not only has important theoretical significance, but also is been as the supplement and reinforce to the"two-sided markets"theory, and it may be attemptation to the theory of media industrial organization theory. The main innovations are summarized as follows:1. The dissertation gets the critical condiction of the media's choices of price modes and the transaction modes with the content providers.(1)The dissertation examines the exiting price modes, constructs a model of two-sided vertically differentiated markets, explores the optimal pricing strategy under the different modes and the optimal choice of pricing mode. The results show the optimality of the pricing modes depends on the relative value ratio between the two-sided users'benefits from media.(2) The dissertation finds the choices of media'transaction with the content providers depends the content providers'choice of accession to media and the surplus of contents. The results demonstrate that the content providers can choose single-homing on the one-sided market transaction mode and multi-homing dealing on two-sided markets transaction mode. When the gross consumer surplus created by the content are little, the content providers will choose single-homing dealing, on the contrary, the choice is multi-homing dealing.2. The dissertation gets the influences on the media price competition and media advertisements competition of advertisers'multi-homing.(1)It constructs a model of media price competition under the advertisers'single-homing and advertisers'multi-homing structure based on horizontal differentiated markets. The results show the advertising fees is higher than the user fees of consumers, the advertisers subsidizes consumers, and an increase in the number of the multi-homing advertisers will enlarger the subsidies. However, an increase in the number of the multi-homing advertisers will deduce the media's profits under the advertisers'single-homing and increase the profits under the advertisers'multi-homing.(2)The dissertation finds the effects of consumers'attitude to advertising and advertisers'access ways on the advertising strategy of media firms, and got the relationship between the competitive equilibrium and compares it to the social optimal levels. The results also show under the advertisers'single-homing or multi-homing, an increase in the proportion of ad-avoiders will increase the advertising fees; under the advertisers'single-homing, an increase in the proportion of ad-avoiders will increase the medias'profits and the competitive advertising equilibriums are consistent with the social optimum; and under the advertisers'multi-homing, an increase in the proportion of ad-avoiders will deduce the medias'profits and identify the precise conditions on the proportions of ad-avoiders.3. The dissertation analyzes the merger motivation of media and its economic effects, finds the merger of media fims characterized by two-sided markets is different from the merger in one-sided market.The results show the media's merger and concentration can result in more profits to media and not lower the profits of advertisers, because it results in lower price per advertising, more advertising and more profits of advertisers. Relative to social optimum, there is under-provision of advertising if there are only few advertisers; In spite of pay-tv or free-tv, the content providers will choose the exclusive dealing and gain the higher content price under the pay-tv, but the exclusive dealing will reduce the consumers'welfare.4. The dissertation explores the"market performance"of deregulation of media industry and points the ways to regulate the media industry.The results show there is the nature of"market failure"in the deregulation media industry, such as the extent of entry and the less advertising compared with the social optimum. It shows the deregulation of media industry does not indeed result in the increase of social welfare and performance, we should still carry the"moderate regulation"into execution.
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