Research Paper on:
Privatization of the BBC and Telecommunications' Deregulation by the United States

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
unforeseen ramifications. Two examples that demonstrate this principle are the deregulation of telecommunications in the US and the proposed privatization of the BBC in Great Britain. As the following literature  review reveals, the US has endeavored to reform the telecommunications industry twice in the last twenty years and succeeding in creating more chaos with each new endeavor. Great Britain, on  the other hand, has moved slowly in reform measures affecting the BBC. Privatizing the BBC When Parliament first began debating whether or not to end the BBC (British Broadcasting  Corporation) monopoly of television by allowing a channel supported by advertising, some commentators compared this prospect to the coming of the Black Death (Anonymous, 1995). Lord Reith, the corporations  first director-general, spoke of "betrayal and surrender" (Anonymous, 1995, p. 71). Just two years after the debut of a commercial channel in Britain in 1955, the BBCs share of the  audience had fallen to 28 percent (Anonymous, 1995). However, the BBC survived, and recovered must of its lost audience. Today, the BBC faces an even more serious challenge as it  has to face compete with hundreds of new television channels (Anonymous, 1995). As this competition erodes the BBC audience, it also erodes the corporations legitimacy. The vast majority of  the BBCs income comes from the license fee -- a flat tax charged to every home that has a television set (Anonymous, 1995). Non-payment of the tax can result  in imprisonment. However, it is difficult to justify the imposition of such a tax when viewers are deserting the BBC. Britain has been  trying to decide what to do about the BBC for years. Committees have been established and their conclusions forgotten (Anonymous, 8 August 1998). In a settlement over the licensing