Despite the growing interest in the organization and regulation of media industries, there is relatively little public discussion of the material processes through which media policy is developed. At a time of considerable change in the global media environment, new actors and new paradigms are emerging that are set to shift the balance of power between public and private interests in the policy-making process. This article focuses on some core challenges to the pluralist conception of public policy-making that still dominates today and considers whether key aspects of UK and American media policy-making can be said to be competitive, accessible, transparent or rational. Based on interviews with a wide range of ‘stakeholders’, the article assesses the power dynamics that underlie media policy-making and argues that the process is skewed by the taken-for-granted domination of market ideology.