The current European consensus on competition in communications is based on ashared vision of contemporary market and technological developments. Roughlystated, the position, outlined in the 1994 Bangemann Report and the 1997 EuropeanGreen Paper on Convergence (Marsden and Verhulst 1999, Blackman, 1998), claims thefollowing:B Due to the ''end of spectrum scarcity'' and the convergence betweentelecommunications, computing and broadcasting, much of the sector specificregulation that encumbers the communications sector can be gradually removed.B Where previous technological constraints made some forms of natural monopoly andmarket failure inevitable, both in telecommunications and broadcasting, state ownershipand regulation will become less necessary.B In the complex markets that emerge, individual and producer choices articulated throughmarket mechanisms will deliver the widest and most efficient choices, optimum socialwelfare and increase overall communications sector innovation towards computinglevels.This went with the ideological grain and the technological and economic exuberance of theperiod. No such consensus existed in the detailed discussion of broadcasting and mediapolicy in 1997/1998, which was deliberately excluded from the 1999 Communication that ledto the Electronic Communications Services (ECS) Directives of 2001.The papers in this issue of Info explore the fissures eight years after the Green Paper andfour years after the Directives were passed. When it comes to the framework for commercialbroadcasting and the position of publicly funded broadcasters, and various forms of stateaid, some posit a future of deregulation in which communications are eventually treated as markets like any other, while others argue that many of the public policy objectives in thesector will require permanent sector specific regulation, and even that the

competitionframework currently being implemented should be subordinated to citizen not consumerinterests.They are based on a series of seminars given in January-March 2005 at OxfordUniversity's Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy[1]. The basic question eachcontributor was asked to address was: ''What's wrong with competition policy in themedia?''. The responses interpreted the question in two main ways:1. Why is competition policy not working effectively in terms of the key aims of promotingchoice, market entry and dealing with abuse of dominance? A point of consensus is thatcompetition policy is facing huge challenges in implementing competition in the media.Cave and Marsden give accounts of media competition policy that may give rise to somepessimistic reflection three years into the process of implementation of the 2001 Directivepackage: Cave outlines the failure to deal with the problems with bundling of the mostvaluable live football rights, and similar difficulties in conditional access and othermarkets. Marsden places the problem of competition in the context of the behaviour ofmarket dominant players in hindering infrastructure competition and development. Untilthese problems are resolved, he argues, we will not arrive at a multi-channel utopia ofchoice.2. Another interpretation of our question is to ask whether competition policy is appropriatein the media sector at all. Is competition policy actually the most suitable response toregulatory questions involving media and especially broadcasting? Woods and Gibbonschallenge the economic policy orthodoxy that competition is the most appropriate tool toregulate European media, and examine some of its implications in recent regulatorypolicy. Woods, on a practical and insightful reading of the ECS Directives, and Gibbons,in a political analysis of OfCom's intentions and philosophy,

question why economicanalysis of the media should be the predominant theme, when democratic pluralism andcultural heritage are rival themes which do not necessarily complement competitionanalysis. Marsden challenges the potential of competition when the industry needsradical structural reshaping of existing monopolies before any effective competitionpolicy can be introduced at the micro-level.Those that stress the fundamental shift to competition regulation tend to stress connectivity:Herbert Ungerer in this volume outlines the shift from analogue - the ''Hertzian age'' - to the''age of nearly unlimited channel capacity''. The content problems on the other hand such asthe key role that premium content plays in this world, and the enduring economies of scale inkey quality production sectors including news, will in this vision be dealt with by thecompetition and access framework. Ungerer's view is that the rise not only of markets, butalso of highly complex vertically integrated markets in broadcasting makes this new role forcompetition a necessity.Others, such as Gibbons and Woods in this volume, raise questions not only about theperformance of competition policy in the service of narrow aims of increasing competitionand promoting market entry. They also raise questions about the broader social welfareassociated with broadcasting. Both these papers highlight the problems encountered wherecompetition objectives, methods and terminologies come into play alongside otherregulatory tools.The ECS Directives should have been implemented in most EU member states by mid-2003with a process of market review based on those Directives implemented by nationalregulators by January 2005[2]. The Directives aimed not only to harmonise competitionframeworks, but also with a nod to public service broadcasters, to ''promote the citizeninterest''. The ''public value''

of broadcasting, a term used by the BBC and Ofcom, isreferred to by Herbert Ungerer in this volume. When he argues that PSB will be''indispensable for the transition'' this may suggest that the assumption beyond the transitionis that it might not. However, exercising proper caution, he argues that regulation will beneeded ''for some time to come''. Although the focus of these papers is the UK market, which has fallen behind in fixed linetelecommunications development but still leads in the transition to digital terrestrialbroadcasting (at least among larger European media ecologies), the lessons from thecontributors are applicable to overall European policy. Ofcom is trying to regain theregulatory initiative with its strategic reviews into both public service broadcasting and fixedline telecommunications in 2004/2005, which will conclude in the late summer. HowEuropean media and competition policy responds to the changes in this highly strategicnetworked sector will be crucial to its emergence as an Information Society, and its responseto the challenges of achieving the Lisbon agenda of i2010 and some parity with moreadvanced North American and East Asian information economies. Whether it can achievethis and maintain the European socio-cultural model depends in large part on its response tothe enduring policy questions our contributors analyse.Previously published in: INFO, Volume 7, Number 5, 2005.