AAI Lends Perspective to Enforcement of Media Mergers at the Latin American and Caribbean Competition Forum

On September 28, 2022, AAI’s President, Diana Moss, participated in the 20th annual Latin American and Caribbean Competition Forum. The two-day event, organized for competition enforcers, was host by the IBD, OECD, and CADE. The panel on media mergers is described below. Moss lent AAI’s perspective on how competition enforcers might consider the intersection of consolidation, innovation, and competitive strategy in the media industry. She drew on AAI’s advocacy in past media mergers, and on the September 2021 joint AAI/Public Knowledge letter sent to the U.S. Department of Justice regarding scrutiny of mergers in media, entertainment, and distribution.

Panel Description: 

The media industry is very broad and includes several services. The media sector incorporates both the production of content, such as news, entertainment, education and research, as well as its distribution through the means of mass communication. Mass media includes the press, television and radio broadcasting, film producing, video streaming, video games, online publishing, social media and podcasting, among others. This session will focus on the assessment of media mergers considering the new configuration of the media industry driven by the technological evolution and changes in consumer behaviour, as well as the growing importance of online services and large tech companies. In particular, the session will consider the role played by the digital platforms and the OTT content distributors in the media industry, and their competition implications. 

Speakers:

Ramiro Camacho Castillo, Commissioner, IFT, Mexico (Moderator)

Aleksandra Boutin, Founding Partner, Positive Competition

Diana Moss, President, American Antitrust Institute

Martin Peitz, Professor of Economics, at the University of Mannheim

Feng Zhu, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, Harvard

University