Why are ministers pre-empting the demise of British television?
After a national crisis, most governments tend to drag their feet before announcing an inquiry. In contrast, the present governments public debate over the future of public service broadcasting may be the first inquiry to be launched well before the crisis has even happened. People arent gathering in the streets demanding that the remit for our national broadcasters be re-examined, but youd think British television was a national disaster in the making the way ministers are fretting over it. The culture secretarys so agitated to get the thing up and running, hes promised that the Channel 4 part of it will be swift and, to save time, has already announced one of its possible conclusions: itll be privatised. Sponsored  Weird this, since Channel 4 is currently