Volume 5 of a study of the history of broadcasting in the United Kingdom, examining the impact of competition. It should be of interest to: institutions where media history is taught; students of British media history at postgraduate level; and general readers who are drawn to the current debates about the BBC.

`He has, once again, written much more than an institutional history. The narrative is controlled and assured, with telling variations of pace and an effective use of light and shade. The achievement is monumental. ' Ian McIntyre, The Times `magnificent five-volume history ... In this magnificent piece of scholarship, Lord Briggs makes history become the web which enfolds us all.' Gillian Reynolds, Sunday Telegraph `Among the fascinations of Briggs's tome is the reminder of the many able directors-general the BBC might have had.' Brenda Maddox, The Times `a mammoth undertaking ... enough information about the BBC between 1955 and 1974 to qualify for Mastermind ... The author's practised hand gives the voluminous text a coherent shape ... Briggs has a sure touch when dealing with Westminster and Whitehall.' Times Higher Educational Supplement `impossible to imagine a more thorough, comprehensive and balanced account - and difficult to suppose that it could have been written with a less tedious pen: the footnotes alone, which must be in total long enough to fill a separate volume, are a delight' The Author, Autumn, 1995 `magisterial and comprehensive ... This is a monumental work of scholarship which could only have been undertaken as a public duty.' The Spectator