Windowing television content: Lessons for digital business models

• Author: Ferran Vendrell‐Herrero,Ganna Pogrebna,Glenn Parry
• Published date: 01 March 2018
• Date: 01 March 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/jsc.2190

RESEARCH ARTICLE

DOI: 10.1002/jsc.2190

Strategic Change. 2018;27(2):151–160. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jsc © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 151

Abstract

There is a market for successful distribuon of television content using a Windowing strategy.

This arcle invesgates if a strategy where content is made available to consumers through dif-

ferent channels over me, a “Windowing” business models, is appropriate for releasing television

programs. By inially exposing consumers to a controlled quanty of free content greater value

can be captured at later stages as 55% of these consumers are 13–20% more likely to become

paying subscribers.

1 

|

 INTRODUCTION

Disrupve innovaon creates new business opportunies, but it also

raises new challenges (Christensen & Overdorf, 2000; Govindarajan

& Kopalle, 2006). Examples of disrupve innovaons include internet

broadband, increased computer capacity, compression algorithms for

les and smart and connected products (Porter & Heppelmann, 2014;

Tidd, Bessant, & Pavi, 2005). The digitalizaon process parcularly

aects industries that create content that can be commercialized or

shared on the web. These digital industries are catalogued under the

heading informaon industries in the NAICS 2002 (Reitzig & Puranam,

2009), and include music, television broadcasng, moon pictures,

media, soware, videogames, and books. Informaon industries face

an on‐going threat to their revenues from those who engage in ille-

gally providing access, usually free, to their core content.

The Moon Picture Associaon of America esmates that lm

industry losses due to piracy exceed $3 billion annually (De Vany &

Walls, 2007). This implies that tradional business models and the laws

that support them are out‐dated as they fail to capture value in the

market place (Jordan & Bolton, 2004). Industries may lobby for new and

stronger regulaon (Danaher, Smith, Telang, & Chen, 2014), support

the development of new business models (Busnza, Vendrell‐Herrero,

Parry, & Myrthianos, 2013), or both, in order to compete in the digital

space (Forte, Homan, Lamont, & Brockmann, 2000). In this arcle, the

work seeks to shed light on how digital business models can allow rms

in informaon industries to recapture some of the value lost.

Business model literature proposes a number of dierent frame-

works, but the majority of research arcles in the area provide ref-

erence to three core elements: the rm’s value proposions; the

customer’s value realizaon process; and the means by which the

rm captures value usually in terms of nancial worth (Parry & Tasker,

2014). Business Models are an appropriate unit of analysis as they

Windowing television content: Lessons for digital

business models*

Glenn Parry1 | Ganna Pogrebna2 | Ferran Vendrell‐Herrero3

1 Bristol Business School, University of the

West of England, United Kingdom

2 The Department of Economics, University

of Birmingham, Birmingham, United

Kingdom

3 Department of Management, University of

Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom

Correspondence

Glenn Parry, Bristol Business School,

University of the West of England, BS16

1QY Bristol, United Kingdom.

Email: glenn.parry@uwe.ac.uk

Funding informaon

EPSRC “Control and Trust as Moderang

Mechanisms in addressing Vulnerability

for the Design of Business & Economic

Models Grant Number: EP/N028422/1

(to G.P.”. Then Spanish Ministry of

Science and Innovaon, Grant Number:

ECO2014‐58472‐R (to F.V‐H.); European

Union (Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska‐

Curie Acons Project MAKERS: Smart

Manufacturing for EU Growth and

Prosperity) (to F.V‐H.)

* JEL classicaon codes: K0, K42.