ABSTRACT
The Labour Party leader, Clement Attlee, helped to harden Conservative resolve by promising to repeal any legislation introduced for the purpose of setting up commercial television if Labour were returned to power. Doubtless some in the advertising industry felt that the degree of control planned was still too great, and would hinder their efforts and those of the programme companies to make television popular and profitable. On the other side, the opponents of commercial broadcasting were outraged at the total dependence of programme providers on advertising revenue. Change in the political system, therefore, was instrumental in breaking the regulatory cycle and generating a new paradigm for broadcasting regulation. Space devoted directly to issues raised by advertising was relatively little, but the discussions in the Committee's report had a strong impact on regulation policy. The Advertising Standards Authority had been set up by the advertising industry to police itself in the hope of avoiding an increase in statutory regulation.
