Worldwide the Internet was the success story of 1998.

From political dissidents in China (one of whom was charged with "Net subversion" in November) to ethnic Albanian journalists in Kosovo - who started Radio 21 on the Net in May - broadcasters as well as political groups around the world used the Internet to deliver their message in increasingly sophisticated ways.

Within 48 hours of its release, the Starr report on the Clinton-Lewinsky affair had been read online by tens of millions of people around the globe.

By the end of the year there were about 2,000 radio and TV stations broadcasting on the Net.

Competitive market

Deregulation, the growing rate of technological change and the irreversible momentum of the digital TV trend led to an increasingly competitive media marketplace.

More companies began expanding into other countries, using digital technology to try to maximise their programming assets.

The BBC and the US company Discovery signed a partnership deal in March for the production and distribution of TV programmes.

The US-based media mogul Rupert Murdoch set up a new subsidiary in Milan, News Corp Europe, to spearhead his push into continental Europe. At the end of the year, he took a controlling interest in a new Italian digital pay-TV venture.

Sporting rights

Murdoch remains a dominant figure in world media

And in sport the massive worldwide interest in TV coverage of the 1998 football World Cup sparked a debate on the price that public broadcasters would have to pay for major sporting events in the future.

TV rights have become the major source of income for most sports and the European rights for the 2002 World Cup have been bought by a private group which intends to sell them off piecemeal, largely to commercial pay-TV stations.

In April, Britain hosted the European Audiovisual Conference in Birmingham, where a major theme was the increasingly tough competition that Europe's television and film industries face from the USA. European Commission President Jacques Santer called for an increase in both private and public support for audiovisual production in Europe.

Asia's crisis dampens expectations

Looking beyond Europe, the economic and political crises in Asia dampened the forecasts in what had been seen 12 months ago as the world's fastest-growing regional pay-TV market. But at a conference in Singapore in December, experts predicted that quick growth could return to the cable and satellite industry as early as mid-1999.

Gateway to a world of information

Rupert Murdoch's continuing efforts to expand in China's television market paid off towards the end of the year when he met President Jiang Zemin, who praised his coverage of China.

India said it would allow the country's private satellite TV channels to raise their level of foreign equity from the current 20%.

In Russia, 1998 saw further political battles for control over broadcasting as politicians prepared for the 1999/2000 elections.

East European market emerges

Poland shone as Eastern Europe's most attractive market for pay-TV growth. In the Balkans, the international community overseeing Bosnia's peace process tried to regulate the hundreds of radio and TV stations in the country and set up a free media system.

Serbia faced widespread criticism for passing a media law which, among other things, banned relays of broadcasts from foreign radio and TV stations and closed several independent newspapers.

The internet came into its own in 1998

In the Middle East, the Arab Broadcasting Union decided to allow private radio and TV stations - still a rarity in the Arab world - to join state-run broadcasters as members. But it kept out the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite TV station, which Jordan and some Gulf states have criticised for its coverage of inter-Arab political differences.

Libya renamed its external radio service the Voice of Africa, reflecting its changed political orientation away from the Arab world. More private broadcasters made their debut in Africa, particularly in Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique.

In Latin America, the first private TV stations went on the air in Colombia in June, and the number of pay-TV subscribers rose in every established market except Brazil.

Over the next 12 months, the global media market will evolve as it become clear how much consumers are prepared to pay for new services.