DO NETWORK NEWS AGENCIES PLAY THEIR DOMINANT STRATEGIES - EMPIRICAL-EVIDENCE FROM LEAD NEWS STORIES

Do network news agencies (ABC, CBS, and NBC) play their dominant strat egies in selecting the lead news story (cover story) for nightly newsc asts? The present paper seeks an answer to this question by employing elementary game-theory analysis and simple logit/ordered legit regress ion models to examine the choice the network agencies make in selectin g a nightly lead news story. While economic theory predicts lead stori es based on company projections of events likely to be judged as 'impo rtant' to consumer-viewers (the dominant strategy), statistical eviden ce presented here suggests that deciphering the dominant strategies is quite difficult. This ultimate result is likely due to demander prefe rences that often drive liberal and sensationalism biases in the media .