Free TV

摘要

Over the past decade, much of the world's media business has been swallowed up by seven giant global companies―AOL Time Warner, Disney, News Corporation, Viacom, Sony, Bertelsmann and Vivendi. Four are American, one is Japa- nese, one German and one French. Given that English is the language of the global media, and that Britain fancies itself as a creative sort of place, the fact that none of these is British offends the British government. That is, in part, what the Communications Bill published on May 7th sets out to remedy. The British media business is tied down by a mass of regulations on who can own whom and broadcast what. One of the consequences is that ITV, the main commercial broadcaster, is split chiefly into two competing companies. This regulation has both protected rotten management and deprived companies of the economies of scale that would help them expand into foreign markets.