Public service is weakest link for ratings-led BBC: The BBC's ratings victory over ITV just means it is winning the race to dumb down, not meeting its duty to provide a public service.

Marketing Week, January, 2002 by Iain Murray

Life, itself a mystery, is full of daily enigmas: why does one sock always go missing? How is it that the remote control always ends up under a cushion? What makes the Hoover lead tie itself in knots? But now, at last, we have an answer to a once intractable puzzle that has vexed some of the greatest minds of modern times -- Greg Dyke, John Bitt, Melvyn Bragg, to name but three -- viz, what is public service broadcasting?

Years ago, when the BBC was in nappies, her days as an auntie still far ahead of her, the question was not worth asking. Everyone knew the answer: public service broadcasting was many things -- entertaining, informative, challenging, amusing, educational, intelligent -- but the common thread running through it was quality. True, it didn't always...