RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

disciplines . It also changed the vvider methođs of economic organization . In 1930s Britain, the BBC pioneered both the corporation and state ownership as methods of accumulation . -ln the 19705, the IBA copied the hybrid of pnvate and state ownership which has proved so successful in France . Just as different stages of Fordism in Britain helped shape these two distinct types of organization , so various countries have also adopted separate solutions for organizing the medta . Therefore corporations anđ state intervention are present within all national media systems , but the specific combination of the two varies from country to country. Whatever the general features of Fordism as a regime of accumulation , its particular application in dlfferent countries will take specific forms dependmg on historical circumstances . Moreover the media itself also has its own specific peculiarities . For almost all information goods, the costs of production are concentrated in the first prototype while subseguent copies can be reproduced for almost nothing . This has made commodity-formation (and enforcement) into a major dif ficulty within the media . This a purely soclal problem causeđ by the material-technical potentialities of the media surpassing the limitations of the social relations of prođuction . This difficulty is particularly acute in radio broadcasting. It faces major problems because its technology allows опе transmitter to reach many listeners . Upto very recently , it was impossible to charge for listening to programs . This created a problem which could only exist in a money-commodity society ; how to рау for the new service. As the first president of the American radio network NBC saw the difficulty : l . . .the greatest advantage of radio - its universahty and, generally speakmg , its ability to reach evervbodv everywhere - in themselves limit, if not completely destroy , that element of control essential to апу program calling for contmued payment by the public . (Sarnoff 1939: 106) The present debate about the future of radio m Britain demonstrates the contmuing force of this đilemma . It is not simply about the preferences of particular politicans . Above all else , it is concerned with creatmg new services which ensure 'continued pavment by the public' , either directlv or mđirectiy . Behmd the rhetoric of the politicans hes the disciplmes of the social relations of production , In contemporary society , the future of the media has also become a way of talkmg about the evolution of the ecortomv as a whole . For example, the French government saw the dereguiation