ABSTRACT
Television is a transnational business and a national institution. It remains our mostwatched form of entertainment and our most important source of information. It is an outlet for creativity and a medium through which social concern and political views may be expressed. It is a substantial employer of administrators and office workers as well as skilled engineers, technicians, programme-makers and per - formers. Yet changes in recent years have been so great that it has been questioned whether ‘television’ as a separate medium is still a viable concept. That will be a question we come back to repeatedly in this book as we focus attention on different aspects of the contemporary scene.
