communications industry structure, including mass media, advertising, and telephone companies
A quantitative indicator of telephone service’s importance to the economy is the volume of toll-free calls. These calls are typically made from an individual to an organization that provides services to individuals across a wide geographic area. Offering toll-free calling encourages individuals to call and emphasizes a company’s willingness to provide services. In the U.S. … Continue reading telephone service's broad economic importance
In ancient Rome, elite men competed intensely in verbal arts. They evaluated each other at the fine granularity of phrases and specific word choices. [1] Epigrams, compact verbal expressions, were highly valued. In these circumstances, a Roman orator c. 100 GC described his business strategy for a speech that he hoped to sell widely: I … Continue reading bundling verbal work in ancient Rome
The Newseum, that stunning monument to the investment priorities of the leaders of traditional news media, features on its front facade the front pages of newspapers. The front page of a print newspaper is commonly considered to be important news: “front-page news.” But news that’s important to you depends on you. Why take seriously what … Continue reading the dilemma of the front page
Some economic aspects of the U.S. movie business have changed relatively little from 1929 to 2007. The number of feature movie releases in both these years was about 700. The total number of movie screens was 66% greater in 2007. That’s less of a change than the 148% increase in U.S. population from 1929 to … Continue reading movie negative cost increased 60x since 1929
Movie theaters potentially can feature profitably more independent works in coming years. U.S. major-studio films had an average negative cost (cost to production of final master) of $71 million per film in 2007. U.S. major-studio affiliates and subsidiaries creating narrower-market films had average negative cost of $48 million per film.[1] New digital tools allow independent … Continue reading new possibilities for movie theaters