COMPETITION IN MASS MEDIA MARKET: FROM TV TO SOCIAL NETWORKS

The importance of competition in mass media industry is constantly increasing, which results from globalization of information space, the growing number of media channels, network expansion and upgraded systems of information carriers. The article explores the notion of competition in the mass media sector as well as looks into the way competition influences the quality of media content. The research studies sectoral and cross-sectoral competition in media production, examines types of competition, ways of using competitive environment as effective resource in social communication. Attention is also paid to the peculiarities of influence exerted on the target audience by national and regional media channels. The author argues that regional local producers of mass media content cannot compete with national media channels, which limits the target audience's scope of knowledge. The data show that competition influences content of an information product and encourages its producers to extend the system of information carriers, i. e. they start diversifying it by using social media, sites, YouTube channels in order to attract larger target audiences and advertisers.