Understanding Broadcast Media Economics in Pakistan

The media market performs a very useful task by creating employment, value, and growth. Media economics is a specialised field in economics based on economic theories and methodological frameworks applied to all types of media; broadcast, print, or social. Media economics is focused on the application of economic principles to economic policies and practices of media houses, news industries, film production, broadcast media, digital media companies, and media advertising spends/expenditures. Additively, media economics also encompasses themes such as the role of media regulators, intellectual property rights, media taxation, and media ownership. Owers, Carveth, and Alexander (2004) define Media Economics as ‘the business operations and financial activities of firms producing and selling output into various media industries’ (pp. 5). Similarly, Picard (1990) defines media economics as to how the ‘media industries produce and allocate resources to create information and entertainment content to meet the needs of audiences, advertisers, and other social institutions.’