Multi-Platform Television and Business Models: A Babylonian Clutter of Definitions and Concepts

The field of multi-platform television is suffering from a Babylonian clutter of definitions and concepts hampering its development especially in terms of establishing new business models for it. Thus, a clear notion of the concepts and definitions within an emerging business field is necessary to identify and develop new opportunities for value creation. To enhance the research field of multi-platform TV the article disentangles the clutter of concepts by defining and aggregating the terms into two groups: Hybrid TV and multi-screening. Based on this differentiation between Hybrid TV and multi-screening and recent studies on customer behaviour, the authors discuss emerging business model opportunities for TV broadcasters within a reconfigured framework differentiating between three dimensions: content, apps and services, and revenues. Finally, the framework is used within a case study of the ProSiebenSat.1 Media Group – Germany’s second largest and most innovative private TV broadcaster – to describe and analyse the actions of ProSiebenSat.1 in response to the rapidly changing environment.