Entertaining the masses

Companies wrestling with the annual or half-yearly task of communicating with four or five thousand private shareholders should spare a thought for the shareholder communications department at British Telecom. Among the first of the UK government's privatizations, BT attracted some 3 mn shareholders onto its register. Fourteen years later that figure has fallen to around 2.1 mn but servicing them still represents a huge burden in time and money. If each shareholder opted to receive the full