Media: Russell Davies.(advertising regulations)

Like all institutions, the advertising industry is obsessed with self-preservation. Anything that hints at a trammelling of our expansion or reach is decried as unnecessary, anti-competitive and not good for consumers.

Our trade bodies have knee-jerk press releases ready to go at the slightest hint of legislation controlling where ads are allowed to appear - almost always mentioning the likely Death of Children's Television and the resulting End of Western Civilisation.

Maybe we should stop worrying and learn to love the fact that there will just be less advertising and less commercial media in the future, and that if we're smart, it can be the rubbish that gets binned, not the high-quality stuff.

It's clear from every 'ad avoidance' study that if technology allows us to steer clear of advertising, we're going to do so. (Even the terminology betrays our prejudices; 'ad avoidance', as though avoiding ads is the aberrant behaviour and the normal thing to do is seek them out.) To me, it's equally clear that society is asking for some rebalancing between commercial and private spaces. Bans on junk-food ads may be clumsy tools, but they demonstrate a societal desire to push back the extent of commercial interruption in our lives. As traditional channels fragment, clever media people ...