Introduction

The international HDTV standard-setting effort became especially politicized due to competitive imbalances between the three major poles of industrial activity: Japan, Europe, and the United States. The significance of these imbalances was magnified by certain structural weaknesses of the European Commission, which led to an especially complicated interaction among the regions, and which ultimately defeated hopes for a unified world standard.

After NHK initially gained the upper hand in Japanese policy circles it tried to consolidate its position through ties to American users of the new technology whose behavior would affect the attractiveness of the MUSE/Hi-Vision standard internationally. NHK then tried to use that transnational coalition to globalize its standard in the CCIR, which would have further strengthened its position at home. Compromises made in order to secure American collaboration backfired, however, as they alerted key European consumer electronics firms and the European Commission to the potential threat to European competitiveness. As the guardian of the “Community interest,” the Commission played up the potential harmful consequences of global adoption of a Japanese standard for the market position of European electronics and audiovisual producers. The Commission then forged a blocking coalition with producers and PTTs that enabled Europe to forestall a choice on global standards. The European delay activated American interests which had hitherto been passive about the issue, sparking debate in America with respect to the technology's consumer and strategic implications and rekindling a competitive standards-setting process in the US.