Moving at Different Speeds. The Commercialization of Television Systems in Europe and its Consequences.

This issue analyzes the gradual spread of various models of commercial TV throughout the decades in different nations across Europe. A process that “moves at different speeds” in the different countries and nonetheless has similar powerful outcomes, enlarging the TV market and opening it up to both local and global influences, ranging from programming to acquisition, from scheduling to the means of advertising, and from freedom of speech and representation to a possible impoverishment of public debate as a consequence of this larger “mediatization”. The essays are focused on the commercialization of television systems in Europe and its consequences.