Good news for British educational publishers. The BBC has decided to suspend its subsidised entry into on-line educational publishing, BBC Jam, under pressure from the European Union. It's good news because an organisation like the BBC is able to discourage new entrants by its very (and not-for-profit) presence just at the point when the market shows signs of taking off. Britain leads the world in e-learning and this can become a significant export market apart from its benefits within the UK provided the publishing is driven by competition and student and teacher satisfaction. The volte face has been achieved by a very long period of argumentation by a number of groups but I want to highlight the role of the the Educational Publishers Council of the Publishers Association. There are some publishers who resent coughing up their annual subscription and some are not members on the 'what's in it for me?' grounds. This ought to be a reminder to everyone of the value of having a committed and professional trade association battling for all of us when it really counts.

Yesterday morning I was in Oxfordshire with a group of Macmillan managers trying to plot our strategic path in various markets and in various formats. We ran three case studies and the aim was to ensure that managers only reviewed a case outside their normal job. It was extremely revealing and the results will show in the not too far future. Here is idyllic Sandford-on-Thames.

Next stop was rather less idyllic - Elephant and Castle in South London.

I was there for the Publishing Innovation conference organised by the MA students of the London College of Communications. I was on a panel with some very distinguished book and magazine publishers, the head of non-fiction for BBC Radio and an old friend and literary agent. The theme was that consolidation of publishing leads to focus on bestsellers at the expense of innovation or new writing - and an undertone that small is beautiful, bigger is bad, 'conglomerates' stifle 'independents' and so on. I think it's all pretty straightforward stuff but it can certainly generate a lot of disagreement and there were some forceful views aired. I disagreed with much of what was said ('sales people should not be allowed any input into publishing decisions'; 'the Richard and Judy Show is a wholly malevolent influence', for instance) but one of the speakers reminded us all how lucky we are to be able to have open debate (she had just returned from China). And this is an opportunity to remind one of the panellists that it's about time he joined the PA if he really wants the publishing industry (and his company in particular) to prosper.