proponents of public service broadcasting and public service broadcasters have quite naturally
taken up their own economic cudgels in its defence. It is therefore not surprising that in the 1990s the BBC commissioned a number of professional economists to produce studies on the new broadcasting environment. The most important of these for our present purposes was the third of the published studies, Broadcasting Society and Policy in the Multimedia Age, by Andrew Graham and Gavyn Davis published in 1997. The importance of the slim volume is suggested by the fact that Davis, then Chief International Economist at Goldman Sachs soon went on to be appointed Chairman of the BC Board of Governors. The arguments advanced in the book have become common currency way beyond the UK and the BBC.

The price of everything and the value of nothing? Economic arguments and the politics of public service media – Peter Goodwin, University of Westminster, UK

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