ABSTRACT
Recent reforms in broadcasting policy are challenging long-held views about the characteristics of ‘public goods’ and the appropriate role that these imply for the state. Broadcasting’s traditional characteristics of non-excludability, non-rivalry, and positive and negative externalities have long been cited to justify an important role for the state. State intervention was needed to help achieve society’s mutually desired goals, as the problems of ill-defined property rights, opportunism and free-riding would undermine our ability to coordinate ourselves voluntarily.
