Peter Bazalgette suggests that television is confronting a revolution in which power is shifting away from the ‘sleek barons of British broadcasting’ in favour of the viewer. But television is still plagued by regulators who apply ill-informed and outmoded criteria of ‘quality’ to programmes and content. They also fail to achieve healthy competition, which benefits the consumer: the key ambition for any regulatory regime. British television is ‘mollycoddled by regulations, bloated on protected revenue and addicted to a system set up forty-five years ago’. Bazalgette argues that ‘we need an end to the era of over-regulation’.

He offers a wide-ranging agenda for change. First, abolish the existing and ‘absurd’ regulators of television content. Second, remove the public-service remit from Channel 3 and Channel 5 and review Channel 4's remit for diversity. Third, phase out the ITV companies’ payments for their licence to broadcast, along with their entire capacity for in-house production with the sole exception of local and regional news. Fourth, privatise BBC Worldwide and finally preserve and strengthen BBC's public-service role.