Introduction: digital television and global media markets

The arrival of digital television across three platforms – terrestrial, satellite and cable – in 1998 augured a new era of broadcasting in the UK. In 2004, over 10 million households in the UK, more than 40 per cent of the potential UK audience, had access to digital television (DCMS, 2004). The UK has trailblazed the expansion of digital television, not only in Europe but across the world. This has been heavily supported by the British government, which has consistently promised a complete ‘switch-over’ to digital television within the first decade of the twenty-first Century. As the quote from Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell indicates, the British have long enjoyed a proud tradition of innovation in television delivery and programming. The digital television era has proved no exception, but it is a dramatically different television landscape that is now presented compared to the oft-cited ‘golden years’ of British television in the 1960s and 1970s. Digital television brings with it some potentially dramatic effects on the broadcasting market beyond the mere promise of better-quality pictures and the transformative experience of interactive viewing, or ‘viewsing’ as it has euphemistically been labelled. The broadening of channels and choice within the television spectrum, from twenty-five channels in 1989 to more than 200 channels in 2003, also demands an increase in programme supply.