European Broadcasting Industry Market at the End of the 20th Century: Structural Analysis

The main objective of the study is the structural analysis of the broadcasting market at the end of the 20th century as an important component of the European audiovisual industry. The tasks of the article are, firstly, reconstruction of the logic development and functioning of the European broadcasting industry market of the mentioned period (production, regulation, distribution, audience), and, secondly, consideration of a wide spectrum of activity kinds and branch subjects including a chain of creating value. Research methodology is based on applying structural analysis in connection with the cycle approach that helps to follow the above mentioned logic, and also the method of a quality analysis that reveals the pluralism of approaches, the interaction of the broadcasting market subjects and its functional peculiarities. Scientific novelty of the article lies in the fact that, for the first time, structural and content characteristics of the European broadcasting market at the end of the 20th century were considered. It was proved that the development of the broadcasting industry in Europe in the mentioned period was accompanied by active creation of public channels and appearing of new private competitors in the market in spite of existing barriers. Among European public broadcasters prevails the pluralism of approaches regarding legal status, organization, the strategy of programming and positions on the market, financial strategy of management, etc. Together with the appearance of new possibilities in connection with cross-border broadcasting, the European broadcasting industry remains concentrated and regulatory, and the existing market structure reminds mix oligopoly where imperfect competition exists between private and state operators. It is emphasized that the increasing pace of creating new channels thanks to the digital infrastructure of a program is positively evaluated by consumers and supports the demand for creating a new content, additionally, the preservation of a high level of concentration greatly influenced the commercial strategy of some channels, demanding from them new business models developing