RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

policy for radio can be seen part of a more general post-Fordist strategy which covers many sectors of British capitalism . With the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreement and the ending of the long boom , many different governments adopted financial and industrial policies which broKe with the regulated and paternalistic structures of the corporate state . This was coupled with a restructuring within production through the introduction of new technologies and working practices centred arounđ the technigues of 'flexible specialisation'. The đeregulation of radio broadcasting is seen as one part of this larger reorganization within the mođe of production , The rhetoric produced by the advocates of free market solutions for radio echoes similar claims made for other industries unđergoing restructuring. They talk about wider consumer choice , competition for specialized audiences and listeners attracted through Mif estyle psychographics'. As in other forms of production, it is claimed that listeners' needs can only be met through competition for auđiences between many stations . However other Tories аге more pessimistic about the outcome of the rađical deregulation of radio broadcasting and wish to avoid the unwanted consequences of market competition . The original experiment in community radio was abandoned because of the difficulty of policing lightly-regulated stations, This paranoia was not based solely on Тогу fears that ethnic communities and leftists broadcasting anti-government programs . The community stations would also have been a very public example of self-organization . This would have contrasteđ strongly with the government's promotion of finance and joint-stock capitalism as the only way of doing things . Insteađ of listeners being treated solely as consumers with a passive choice between stations , the community radio experiment would have alloweđ people to become involved in their own stations in many different ways . The government feared that such experiences woulđ encourage self-confidence in marginalized communities and make the stations a focus for wider struggles against authority . But the Conservatives also find the other alternative strategies for developing radio have their own difficulties . An open incorporation of community stations by government grants and close regulation is too close to the old remedies of the corporatist past. The expansion of the BBC is likewise ruleđ out. Even the favored solutions of auctioning NCR freguencies to corporations threatens the new found solvency of the local commercial stations and the dividends of the Тогу M.P.s involved in them. But the status quo is impossible too . While Radio Caroline cost i 250,000 to set up its operations in the North Sea , now a pirate transmitter sells for around Z2 50! (Kelly 1968; 10; Gorđon Mac 1988) At present, đelays in

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