Television's Power Relations in the Transition to Digital

Abstract

This article examines the contemporary configuration of power relations in the U.K. television sector, probing, in the process, the enduring accuracy of longstanding economic arguments concerning distributor dominance in the “cultural industries” more broadly. Such arguments are important because we cannot understand the power of the media unless we understand the circulation of power within the media. The article shows that while recent developments in respect to both producer—distributor and producer—advertiser relationships have begun to enhance the leverage enjoyed by the production community, the steady inflation of the mass-market premium enjoyed by the leading distributors (the terrestrial broadcasters) in the advertising market has largely sustained their power, in relation to smaller (multichannel) distributors, to producer suppliers, and—of course— to the consuming public.