If you were asked to identify the three biggest beasts in the UK communications jungle, you'd point your finger pretty confidently at the BBC, BT and BSkyB. As Will Smith's Muhammad Ali nearly puts it to fight promoter Don King in Michael Mann's new bio-pic, it seems like someone just swallowed the whole B section of the dictionary.

There is, of course, an explanation for this rash of Bs which, in each case, stands for British, recalling the sense of national mission which attended the birth of all these organisations. The question is: what potential do they now have to fulfil national ambitions of the future?

Although it is not fashionable to speak of "national champions", it is clear from every word ministers utter about the reform of communications regulation that they hope to create a system that supports the international economic success of the UK's communications sector, as well as ensuring its diversity and plurality on democratic grounds.

Ofcom's role is obviously crucial in all this, but as yet far from clearly imagined. The latest contribution to that imagining is the BBC's formal pitch to be seen as a reliable but semi-detached

part of the Ofcom conurbation. It welcomes its inclusion in so-called "tier one" and "tier two" economic and content regulation, but wants a reformed board of governors to remain as the primary definer of the corporation's public service remit. In the BBC's view, whereas other licensed broadcasters will frame service promises for assessment by Ofcom, the BBC will frame them for assessment by the governors. This, it says, makes for the desired level playing field.

BSkyB's view of Ofcom flows through two lenses: television content and communications infrastructure. As a content producer, Sky wants the most advantageous possible access to cable and terrestrial broadcast systems; as a platform provider, it wants to extract the maximum rent and to provide conditions as favourable as possible for its own services.

From Sky's point of view, it is crucial that the BBC is regulated by the same criteria as its competitors, since the publicly funded broadcaster is not only the largest player in the UK content business, but is emerging as lead in the new digital terrestrial platform. According to BBC publicity material distributed in the past few days (The BBC Guide to Digital Television and Radio), the promised £100 set-top box to receive 14 free-to-view channels will be in the shops by "late spring 2002". This document says nothing about the potential upgradability of the box to receive ITV Digital pay channels, or indeed anything at all about other broadcasters' free-to-air offerings.

It is clear that the BBC's eight television services will dominate the service, though the terrestrial broadcasters are still arguing about the extent to which BBC interactive offerings should also be allowed to gobble up more spectrum on the system. At present, Sky's own offer to supply a mixed news and sports news channel is on ice.

BT, in spite of a recent rush of blood to the head when its chairman suggested it might pursue a BSkyB model of integrated television content and carriage, has in reality gone back to its knitting. Last week's sharp cuts in the price of broadband connections are designed to ensure that BT dominates the infrastructure of "Broadband Britain". Government ministers are delighted that this slimmer, more domestically-focused BT is starting to get its act together on a matter with many wider implications for UK competitiveness.

For the present, however, BT's actions have little relevance to the distribution of television channels, though over time they may start to make an impact on the ways in which we consume video, or what we think of as individual television programmes. As this happens, the terms on which content producers have access to the broadband telecommunications system could become as crucial as it already is in the area of cable and satellite.

No one can predict who will triumph in these content and platform wars and it is not for the government to guess. Will the reshaped BBC and ITV-led digital terrestrial offering sweep lethargic digital customers before it? Will the technology, customer management and content be good enough? Or will Sky's superior breadth of content, near-universal accessibility and latest built-in record and replay technology give it an edge, even at a higher price. Sky thinks it can increase its customers from just under 6m to 9m.

In terms of the UK television business, this is the great battle which lies before us and which Ofcom is being created to oversee. It will not be easy for the regulator to preside over a contest between a tearaway market animal like BSkyB, a sobered-up private sector utility like BT and an admired, publicly funded grandee like the BBC. It's rather like asking a single central bank to service Cold War Russia and California.

But this does not mean the task can be avoided. The BBC has to be within this system, not only in the ways that it envisages in its latest policy document, but also in any calculation of acceptable media ownership limits and in granting Ofcom powerful influence, if not the last word, on the scope and nature of new BBC services because these have so much impact upon everyone else.

There is no guaranteeing that the new regulatory arrangements will produce the desired benefits. Much will depend upon the people who run Ofcom. But all around us we see the fragmentation and corporate disappointment which has resulted, in part at least, from our current, balkanised approach to communications regulation.

BT and the ITV companies are shadows of what they might have been. BSkyB, itself dominated by an American shareholder, is retiring hurt from Italy and Germany. The BBC's international influence is cultural and political, not commercial. If a globally significant UK commercial player is to emerge from the next stage of the communications revolution, a different mentality will be needed.

hargreavesian@hotmail.com

Ian Hargreaves is professor of journalism at Cardiff University