Online platforms need to strike a balance between advertiser and subscriber revenue streams. Getting more viewers for ad-free subscriptions results in fewer viewers for advertisers. This two-sided market situation calls for joint pricing decisions. Moreover, the demand for the platform's content will often have a time variable demand pattern with predictable seasons of high and low demand. Such is the case of many news portals, online knowledge portals, video streaming platforms, etc.
We consider the revenue management problem for such a two-sided market case. Consumer valuations in this case are heterogeneous, thereby allowing segmentation into high and low valuation segments. Our model allows for time varying heterogeneity in consumer valuations as is the situation in the case of news portals or video streaming platforms. The platform's decisions are about the subscription prices, where we consider three cases: low subscription fee, high subscription fee, or no fee at all. We study the platform's pricing decisions during times of high and low demand and find the price regimes that should follow the demand pattern.