At the heart of the continuing negotiations between News Corporation and the Office of Fair Trading over the fate of BSkyB is the problem of defining pluralism.
Can pluralism be measured? Are there truly objective metrics about which everyone can agree. It would appear not.
At a recent symposium on the subject at City University, lawyers with regulatory experience at the OFT argued that there was no clear legal definition of plurality laid down in the public interest test of the 2003 Communications Act.
But Ofcom did use a series of metrics in its report urging News Corp's bid to be referred to the Competition Commission.
The ever-perceptive David Elstein, the former Channel 5 chief executive who once worked for BSkyB as its head of programming, was unimpressed and has produced an alternative set of measurements.
I explored this subject in my column in yesterday's London Evening Standard.
