ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how the European Union (EU) has accommodated cultural concerns in its regulation of the audiovisual sector. It argues that the EU pursued cultural objectives from the very start of its engagement with the mass media but that these objectives were ones that fitted neatly with, and indeed were used to support, its primary economic goals. The chapter focuses on EU attempts to stimulate the development of European television services and an integrated television market. It discusses EU intervention in the fields of industrial policy and competition law. The chapter also considers how the EU's evolving competence in the field, coupled with technological changes, have affected the rationales for, and way in which, the EU engages with the mass media. EU engagement with the media sector has throughout pursued political and cultural, as well as economic, goals. It has never been simply 'business as usual'.
