Ecological constraints on audience size in the digital media system: evidence from the longitudinal tracking data from 2019 to 2022

Abstract The current high-choice media environment is characterized by increasingly intense competition for audience resources among media products. Drawing on research in organizational ecology and communication, audience behavior, and media economics, this study provides an ecological explanation for audience size in the digital media system. The analysis of Comscore’s aggregate audience data on the use of 64 digital media platforms over a 38-month period from 2019 to 2022 shows that a platform’s audience size is negatively associated with its niche overlap with another platform. This competitive effect of niche overlap on a platform’s current audience size is moderated by its previous audience size (size dependence) and species membership in the environment (species dependence). The results also support the short- and long-term stability of audience size.