Direct broadcast satellites : The media--industrial complex in the UK and Europe

A fusion of industrial interests, media enterprises and governments - a media-industrial complex - has developed and is extending to the new media of direct broadcasting by satellite (DBS). This article examines the consequences of such control for broadcasting in the UK and Europe. Among the issues considered are financing of DBS, take-up, local content, diversity of choice, public service broadcasting, advertising, cultural formation, free flow of information and European integration. The author asks whether multinational media enterprises are the appropriate entities to exercise control over such matters. Two developments are necessary in order to realize the potential benefits of DBS for Europe: European cooperation in hardware manufacture, and effective regulation of DBS in accordance with overt broadcasting principles.