1. The role of the UK Radiocommunications Agency (RA) is to administer most of the civil radio spectrum. Beginning in 1995 the Agency has from time to time undertaken work to determine the size and importance of the radio industry, and hence the value of the resource it manages. To this end the RA has recently undertaken work to estimate:

	the producer surplus accruing to companies in the radio sector,
	the consumer surplus accruing to their customers, as well as other radio users.

2. In particular, the Agency has commissioned a number of surveys to measure consumer surplus using the stated preference method. This is a method that has been applied many times in the areas of transport and environmental economics; but seldom in the radio sector. Moreover it is often the case that work has been done on stated preference by market researchers without relating it to the economic theory of welfare economics (e.g. consumer surplus, equivalent and compensating variation). Furthermore, there are issues concerning the application of stated preference to estimate welfare effects in the light of possible income effects and non-linearity.

3 The purpose of the seminar on 15 February is to explore these issues with respect to surveys in:

	TV and radio broadcasting,
	Maritime and amateur aviation radio,
	Cellular mobile radio.

A summary of the seminar will appear on the RA's web site. These comments will then help guide the Agency in its research programme to measure the welfare effects of radio. It is also hoped that the seminar will interest academic economists in the burgeoning and relatively unexplored area of radio economics.