Television at the Crossroads: Which Way to Turn?

Abstract

The previous chapters have illustrated the choices which television is facing. As a dynamic aspect of our common life it has been, and will continue to be, in crisis. But since this is being written just before the end of the millennium, not to mention the fin de siècle, the options before us are perhaps rather more fundamental than they have been for some time. Moreover, the 18 years of Thatcherism and neo-Thatcherism with its thoughtless pursuit of the market paradigm have put in question verities which in 1979. were regarded as relatively established. The advance of information technology has added to the climate of flux which currently dominates thinking about the communications industry. It has unsettled the BBC; and it has put the commercial broadcasters off their well-established target of providing good quality television for the population of their coverage areas while making a more than adequate return. The goalposts are being moved and nobody quite knows where they will be repositioned. The government is taking an understandably short view: let us get digitalisation out of the way in the next decade, and then think again.