The World Situation of Public Service Broadcasting:

Overview and Analysis

Marc Raboy
Department of Communication
University of Montral
Montral, Qubec, Canada

Introduction
This international Round Table on the cultural and educational functions of public service
broadcasting comes at a fortuitous time, as the changing environment of broadcasting is on
various agendas, from the Council of Europe to the numerous national states grappling with the
challenges to their national communications systems; from the G7 and its grand design for a
global information highway to the burgeoning number of non-governmental organizations active
in the field of mass communication. At the heart of these debates is the question of the present
and future status of public service broadcasting.

Meeting in Prague in December 1994, the Council of Europes 4th European Ministerial
Conference on Mass Media Policy identified the safeguarding of independent, appropriately-
funded public service broadcasting institutions as essential to the functioning of the media in a
democratic society. The Councils draft resolution on the future of public service broadcasting
included a nine-point mission statement reiterating, in a particularly European perspective, the
traditional objectives of public service broadcasting. Such statements, for all their worth, also
point to the obstacles faced by conventional public service broadcasting in the current global
context. In the contemporary debates on the changing environment of mass communication, there
is no shortage of earnest outlines of goals and objectives for media with aims other than business
or propaganda. There is no shortage of good will, or good ideas, but the realization of the ideals
of public service broadcasting is rendered problematic by a series of political, economic,
technological, ideological and developmental constraints.

In many parts of the world, the problem is still totalitarianism, and the equation of the public
interest with the particular interests of the national state. Where totalitarianism has been
overcome, the problems facing media in the transition to democracy are often the best example of
the problems of democratization generally. In Eastern Europe, in most of Africa, and in much of
the rest of the transitional world, public service broadcasting is a distant ideal, not yet a working
reality. In those countries where the leadership has embraced that ideal, the lack of a receptive
political and professional culture is often the next hurdle. Where neo-totalitarian or neo-colonial
governments seek to retain power at all cost, the lack of autonomy of nationalmedia is also a
problem of political will.

In the heartland of traditional public service broadcasting, Western Europe (and in countries with
similar systems such as Canada, Australia and Japan), the vogue towards liberalization and
market reform mixed with a lack of official faith in the continued importance of public service
broadcasting leads to a syndrome where precious experience is being washed away. Problems of
financing, problems of mandate, interpretations of purpose point, here too, to a more fundamental
problem of political will. What is there in common between a country such as Cambodia, seeking
to build a national broadcasting system virtually from scratch, and the G7 member seeking to trim
its deficit by attacking the tax base of public service broadcasting? On the surface very little. But
in fact, national peculiarities apart, questions concerning the structures of broadcasting are
increasingly global ones. In the new broadcasting environment, the issue of public service
broadcasting reduces to: what is it to do, and how is it to be paid for? Or put another way, what
social and cultural goals attributed to broadcasting require a specially mandated, non-
commercially driven organization, publicly owned, publicly funded to the extent necessary, and
publicly accountable?

Broadcasters, politicians, media professionals and creative people, community activists and
scholars world-wide are wrestling with these questions today. While the diagnosis is global, the
prescriptions are necessarily context-specific. When we put them together, however, we find in
the range of models, examples and ways of framing the issues, the basis for their global portrait,
and a sketch of a solution. 2

Changing Structures of World Broadcasting Systems

Fifteen years ago, when the International Commission on the Study of Communication Problems
chaired by the late Sean MacBride reported to UNESCO, the structure of the worlds
broadcasting systems was a relatively unproblematic affair. The subject occupied a mere two
pages in the MacBride Report, where public service broadcasting did not even require a separate
index entry (UNESCO, 1980).

In 1980, national broadcasting systems could be typed according to the prevailing political
systems in each of the countries concerned. Most European countries had a single monopoly
broadcaster - although operating according to very different sets of principles in the West and in
the East. In Africa, too, national broadcasting was strictly government owned and operated. At
the other extreme, the American free enterprise model of broadcasting was operational in most of
Asia and the Americas (with notable exceptions). The number of countries with mixed systems
was small (the MacBride report mentioned the UK, Japan, Australia, Canada, and Finland).
Where it existed, community broadcasting was a strictly local, marginalized phenomenon with
few links to the mainstream. In 1980, the letters CNN did not have the evocative authority they
do today. 3
Since that time the world has changed. The evolution of broadcasting has been marked by the
following three sets of parallel developments:
1. the explosion in channel capacity and disappearance of
audio-visual borders made possible by new technology;
2. the disintegration of the state broadcasting model with the
collapse of the socialist bloc and the move towards democratization
in various parts of the world; and
3. the upsurge in market broadcasting and the introduction of
mixed broadcasting systems in the countries with former
public service monopolies.

Far from being distinct from one another, these phenomena are in complex interrelationship with
respect to the emergence of new forms of broadcasting, locally, nationally and internationally.
The consolidation of a world broadcasting market has been abetted by the collapse of the iron
curtain, just as that process was accelerated by the technological obsolescence of attempts to
control access to information and the means of communication. At the same time, the re-
evaluation of welfare capitalism
spurred on by an uneasy marriage of ideological and economic considerations coinciding
with the arrival of the new generation of broadcasting technologies, has further strengthened the
market model. It also undermined the view that broadcasting is a sphere of activity analogous to
education or health care that is to say, a primarily social and cultural rather than an economic or
political activity (Servaes, 1993: 327).
As The Economist magazine put it in a major report in 1994, television has changed the world but
the world has not (yet) changed television:4
Television is a one-way conduit for entertainment, sports and news, broadcasting in real time to a
passive, mass audience. It plays, you watch. If what is on does not appeal, you change channels; if nothing
appeals, you are out of luck. Satellites do nothing to alter this model of television. They just transmit it to
more people in more places (The Economist, 1994: 4).

Until the 1980s, television was mainly limited to the OECD and Soviet bloc countries. Since then,
the number of sets has tripled, although still unevenly distributed, and the number of satellite
stations has gone from O to 300 (although there are still only two really global channels, Turners
CNN and Viacoms MTV). 5 In 1980, there were 40 channels in Europe, today there are 150.
In 1993, every American home paid $30 per month for its free television, via the cost of
advertising passed on to consumers; the new broadcasting industry economics will be a dogs
breakfast of advertising, subscription, and pay-per-view. But people only watch around seven
channels, so the more choice there is, the less likely it is that any particular one will be among
them. This is not heartening news for broadcasters.

One of the characteristics of the current context which easily leads to confusion is the blurring of
distinctions between formerly distinct activities: broadcasting and narrowcasting, broadcasting
and telecommunication, public and private broadcasting. The 1994 policy debates surrounding
the new information superhighway have seen a flurry of new alliances and repositioning of
broadcasting industry players nationally and internationally, private and public. Broadcasting will
henceforth be evolving in a more complex multimedia environment, and its previous subdivisions
into distinct domains such as terrestrial, cable and satellite broadcasting are quickly becoming
obsolete. Questions concerning the future of public service broadcasting will be played out and
resolved in a broader policy framework. This means both greater constraints as well as new
possibilities, but the principal normative question will remain: What should be the public
function of broadcasting in a democracy? (van Cuilenburg and Slaa, 1993).

The context of technological convergence and the accompanying policy debates can help clarify
the concept of public service with respect to media generally and hence, to develop a more
appropriate conception of public service broadcasting. In telecommunication, the concept of
universal public service has been much more clear and straightforward than in broadcasting.
The principle of universality has been tied to the operational provision of affordable access (not
an issue in broadcasting as long as the main means of transmission was over-the-air, but
increasingly so with the addition of various tiers of chargeable services).
The displacement of universal service by subscriber-based and pay-per-view services is the
strongest factor favouring a shift towards the consumer model in broadcasting, and needs to be
countered by policy measures and institutional mechanisms to promote the democratic function of
broadcasting. This can only come about through a rethinking of what we mean by public service
broadcasting.

Broadcasting may be the quintessential cultural industry (Sinclair, 1994), it is increasingly the
closest thing we have to a universal cultural form (Collins, 1990). Until recently, national
broadcasting systems were seen to be the main vehicles for ensuring that the national culture was
reflected in broadcasting, and with the obvious exception of the USA, success in this respect was
tied to a national public broadcasting system. National broadcasting systems are now for the most
part more broadly constituted, and at the same time, national broadcasters control a decreasing
share of every countrys audio-visual space (Caron and Juneau, 1992). But are their messages any
less prominent in national consciousness? This is an extremely difficult question to
answer with any degree of certainty.
One important aspect of this question is to recognize the
problematic nature of national identity itself. Identity today is
increasingly multifaceted and national identity is a particularly
contested issue in many countries, even among some of the most
politically stable. This poses another challenge to broadcasting,
which has traditionally been organized at the national level.
Where public broadcasting has been well-established, it has
almost invariably been through the presence of a strong, often
highly centralized national public broadcaster. It is not only the
external pressures of globalization that challenge this model
today, but also the internal pressures brought about by the fragmentation
of traditional notions of nationhood (see Pietersee,
1994). If public service broadcasting is to speak to the real concerns
of its public, it has to rethink its approach to one of its most
cherished objectives, the cementing of national unity. This may
be especially difficult for politicians to accept.
Traditionally, public service broadcasting has been expected
to represent the national as opposed to the foreign. It maybe time
to refocus these conceptual categories, in terms of the local and
the global. There is a certain universal appeal to the products of
Hollywood-based mass culture - that is, ultimately, the only possible
explanation for their success. At the same time, specific
publics will be interested in specific types of broadcasting programming.
The global cultural industry recognizes this by developing
products targeted to niche markets. Public broadcasting
has a different role, principally by conceiving its audience as a
public rather than a market. Some programmes may speak to a
particular national public, but on any given national territory
there will be less-than-national broadcasting needs to be fulfilled.
National networks, publicly or privately owned, can no longer be
expected to be forces of cohesion; they can, however, be highly effective distribution systems for
programmes of importance to the communities they serve. For this to occur, we need a new
definition of public service broadcasting, suitable to a new public culture, global in scope and
experienced locally. 6

The idea of public service broadcasting is not intrinsically tied

to that of nationhood, rather with that of the public, and broadcasting,
as a form of communication, with that of community
(Carey, 1989). Therefore, we need to take a fresh look at public
service broadcasting in the context of a changing role for the still
present, still formidable (for lack of a structure to replace it)
nation state. As the alternative to the state becomes the market,
the alternative to public service broadcasting is construed as private
sector broadcasting; this is logically flawed as well as politically
short-sighted. The globalisation of markets is both global
and local (global products are usually produced in a single place,
distributed world-wide and consumed locally, everywhere). As the
nation state is left marooned between the global and the particular
(Ellis, 1994), so is public service broadcasting. This might
explain the success of speciality services, and the economies of
scale justified by global products in search of small local markets;
but it is false to assume this means there is no longer a social need
for public service broadcasting; it rather demands redefinition,
for as Ellis (1994) has stated, only public service broadcasting
puts a social agenda before a market agenda.
In this context, the idea of public service broadcasting stands
out more boldly than any of the existing structures set up to manage
broadcasting in its name. This chapter shall look at three
dimensions of this subject. The first is conceptual, and asks the
question: what is public service broadcasting? The second is
descriptive and analytical and establishes the portrait of the current
world situation, as reflected in a typology of existing models.
In the third part, we will try to refocus the issues facing public service
broadcasting by suggesting a series of structural approaches
that could be useful to promoting the ideal of public service
broadcasting in the present economic, political and technological
environment.

What is Public Service Broadcasting?

The idea of public service broadcasting is rooted in the enlightenment
notion of the public and of a public space in which social
and political life democratically unfolds (Habermas, 1989), as
well as in the tradition of independent, publicly organized broadcasting
institutions created to deliver radio programmes to audiences
in the period between the two world wars.
In some cases, public service broadcasting refers to one or
more institutions, while in others, it is an ideal (Syvertsen, 1992).
Thus, in some countries, public service broadcasting refers to a
particular organization or sector of the broadcasting system,
while in others, the entire system may be viewed as a public service.
In some cases, public service broadcasting is seen as a developmental
goal to be achieved. While in many cases public service
broadcasting may indeed be in crisis (Rowland and Tracey,
1990), the ideal that it represents is certainly very much alive.
It is unnecessary here to review the origins of public service
broadcasting, except to recall that both the institution and the
ideal (or a certain conception of it) originated in the experience of
the BBC and its founder Sir John Reith (see McDonnell, 1991).
The BBC still stands as the quintessential model of public service
broadcasting world-wide, particularly in the view of national governments
seeking to establish or to revitalize their broadcasting
systems. It is indeed often impossible to separate the idea from
the practical example of the institution, but do that we must.
While the BBC is probably still the most successful example of a
national public service broadcaster, and the UK among the most
successful at anticipating and adapting to the new context of the
21st century, it is not necessarily an appropriate or easily transportable
model for many situations. The ideal, on the other hand,
is a universal one to the extent that democratic values can be
said to be universal.
There is no easy answer to the question What is public service
broadcasting, but a reasonably thorough attempt was made
some years ago by the UK's now defunct Broadcasting Research
Unit, in a pamphlet first published in 1985 (BRU, 1985/1988. See
also Barnett and Docherty, 1991).
The BRU document presented those elements of public service
broadcasting which should be retained within whatever systems
are devised to provide broadcasting as new communications
technologies come into use. It is not therefore a defence of the
existing public service (broadcasting) institutions as they are
today or as they may become; it is concerned with the whole
landscape... (emphasis added).
The BRU approach supported the view that broadcasting
should be seen as a comprehensive environment. Its main principles
can be summarized as follows:
1. universal accessibility (geographic);
2. universal appeal (general tastes and interests);
3. particular attention to minorities;
4. contribution to sense of national identity and community;
5. distance from vested interests;
6. direct funding and universality of payment;
7. competition in good programming rather than for numbers;
and
8. guidelines that liberate rather than restrict programme
makers.
As public service characteristics, the list also points to the
inherent pitfalls of such an exercise. While some of the characteristics
(i.e., accessibility) are straightforward enough, certain others
(i.e., contribution to a sense of national identity) are highly problematic,
insofar as in many states (including the British) the question
of nationhood itself is not fully resolved. Distance from
vested interests implies an ideal situation where the broadcasting
institutions do not have their own vested interests. A notion such
as good programming begs the question of taste: good, according
to whom?
The real problem, however, is not how to improve the list but
rather how to apply any such set of principles. Indeed, the exercise
points to a need to return to even more fundamental values
regarding broadcasting and its role in society (Blumler, 1992).
Traditional value judgments concerning the objectives of
public broadcasting provide inadequate guidance to broadcasters
and policy makers about how to decide what resources should be allocated to public broadcasting
as a whole and to the different components of public broadcasting, concluded Robin
Foster on the basis of the British debate, in a 1992 report to the
David Hume Institute (Foster, 1992: 24). Fosters analysis led to
the suggestion that viewers and listeners should be consulted
regarding the level of resources to be put into particular types of
programmes a proposal not likely to be endearing to broadcasters
or policy-makers, although logical and coherent with
respect to both public policy objectives for broadcasting and the
prevailing discourse of consumer sovereignty. As an input into
determining the public broadcasting contract, ways should be
found of establishing what the public wants public broadcasting
to be; giving the public involvement in deciding what is provided
(Foster, 1992: 31). This raises another important issue:
what do we mean by the public?
Numerous authors have been engaged with the need to redefine
our conception of the public in light of the changing nature
of late 20th century mass media (See, for example, Curran, 1991;
Garnham, 1992; Dahlgren 1994). If this is relatively straightforward
for certain actors in the sphere of broadcasting advertisers,
for example, who conceive of their target as a market, or ratingsdriven
broadcasters who quantify it as an audience - it is not so
evident for public service broadcasters and the makers of public
policy. Smith (1991) has noted:
Broadcasting takes place in the public sphere and we come to it both
as consumers and as citizens. There is no fixed definition of the public
service dimension in broadcasting. It changes with the altering circumstances
of politics and social conceptions of need... In the context
of the burgeoning market-place of programmesz and of channels public
service itself changes in emphasis, without diminishing the salience of
its earlier meanings, which originated with the scarcity of frequencies
but also in the nature of the medium of broadcasting itself. Where
commercial broadcasting is linked to the social world by means of
markets, public service derives its legitimacy from the role its viewers
play as citizens.
The notion of citizenship has severe implications for broadcasting.
Citizenship can not be passive. Citizenship is political.
Citizenship evokes the image of Tom Paine and the unfinished

struggle for liberty, equality, fraternity (Keane, 1991, 1994).

When public service broadcasting is linked to the idea of citizenship,
it must logically be decoupled from the authoritarian power
of the state. At the same time, it can not be commodified. This is
not a question of principle but of purpose. The main point of distinction
between public service and private sector broadcasting is
that the latter is only commercially-driven, while the former,
despite the various shapes and forms it assumes from time to time
and place to place, is necessarily propelled by a different logic.
It is critical to understand the subtleties inherent in this distinction.
Within the realm of conventional public broadcasting,
there are two schools of thought regarding commercial activity.
One has it that commercial and public service objectives are
wholly incompatible and cannot be combined within a single service.
The other view is that they can coexist and public and private
broadcasting can compete in the advertising marketplace to
the mutual benefit of both. Without seeking to resolve this dilemma,
I would like to suggest that there is a third conceptual and
structural approach to this question: assuming that certain activities
of broadcasting can be financed commercially and others can
not, why not redistribute the benefits of the commercial sector to
finance the non-commercial sector? This systemic approach is
partially recognized in some countries which legally define their
national broadcasting systems as public services, thus legitimating
the regulatory intervention of the state; but it is not operationalized
anywhere through the appropriation of the fruit of lucrative
activity to subsidize the rest. It is just assumed with no basis in
logic, only in ideology - that commercially viable broadcasting
should be left in the private sector and unprofitable broadcasting
activity should be subsidized in some other way. On the other
hand, one could just as logically argue that, insofar as the social
basis of broadcasting is public service, the profits of the lucrative
sector should be redistributed within the system. If this is an
unlikely formula, it is not because of any conceptual flaw, but
because of broadcastings capture by private industry.
Indeed, the leaders of the global broadcasting industry have
turned this idea on its head by claiming that the product they are
selling is a public service. As early as 1960, CBS Executive Frank
Stanton proclaimed that a programme in which a large part of
the audience is interested is by that very fact... in the public interest
(quoted in Friendly, 1967: 291). More recently, Rupert
Murdoch has stated: Anybody who, within the law of the land,
provides a service which the public wants at a price it can afford
is providing a public service (quoted in Ellis, 1994: 1). To the
extent that the public is just another way of describing the aggregate
consumer market for broadcasting, they are of course correct,
which is why, once again, it is important to get the terminology
straight. Meanwhile, the idea of public service broadcasting has
been undermined by the erosion of the public commitment to
the service that has been provided by actually-existing public
broadcasting institutions. In many cases, this erosion has been
egged on by the abuse of the term by national governments seeking
to use broadcasting for a higher national purpose, claiming
that this is in the public interest.
As Ellis (1994) points out, the continuing role of the nation
state is not to act as the bearer of national unity or the essence of
national identity, but to negotiate antagonisms and set the limits
of acceptable communal behaviour. In this context, there exists a
need to establish a consensus that holds civil society together,
regardless of the disparate elements making it up. Such a consensus
can only be based on shared conventions, relying increasingly
on the rituals of communication. The role of public service
broadcasting in this context is to provide a space in which social
antagonisms can be explored and worked out, not cater to accentuating
difference, as commercial multi-channel broadcasting has
a tendency to do. No longer an agent of national unity, public
service broadcasting can provide the forum within which the
emerging culture of multiple identities can negotiate its antagonisms,
notes Ellis (1994: 14). Exploring new possibilities for consensus
rather than imposing it, is the opposite of the former role of
public service broadcasting - which goes quite a way to explaining
why the traditional strategies of the major national public service
broadcasters no longer work, and why they are in trouble as they
seek to accommodate a new raison dtre. We have been so preoccupied
by the challenges to Public Service Broadcasting from
within broadcasting that we have failed to notice the profound
changes that have taken place in the public whom broadcasting is
supposed to serve (Ellis, 1994: 16).
Public broadcasting is first of all a public good (Garnham,
1 994), and public goods are goods which cannot be appropriated
privately. If such a good is supplied, no member of the collectivity
can be excluded from its consumption. Therefore, public
goods must be produced by institutions other than a market
economy and distributed by a mechanism different from markets
(Berger, 1990: 128). The first step is determin ing what makes
public broadcasting a public good; this is not immediately self-
-evident, which is what Yves Achille (1994) means when he writes
that public service broadcasting is suffering from a crisis of identity.
Achille refers to a triple crisis of public service broadcasting:
identity, financing and functioning. If the identity crisis could be
resolved, the financial problem essentially a question of political
will could then be addressed. As to the fictional question,
in countries with an established public service broadcasting tradition,
nothing less than a zero-based review of existing institutional
structures can bring public service broadcasting into the
21st century with a hope of building public and political support
for its new role.
In a broadcasting environment that treats the public as a body
of clients or consumers, the role of public broadcasting is to
address people as citizens. Public broadcasting can do this only if
it is seen as an instrument of social and cultural development,
rather than as a marginal alternative service on the periphery of a
vast cultural industry (see Raboy, et al., 1994).7 This implies a
freshly conceived role for the state, which must see itself more as
architect than as engineer: that is to say, the role of the state is to
design and facilitate the functioning of a multi-faceted national
broadcasting system, rather than as the directive patron of a dedicated
national broadcaster.
The crucial choice, as Graham Murdock has written, is not,
as many commentators suppose, between state licensing and control
on the one side and minimally regulated market mechanisms
on the other. It is between policies designed to reinvigorate public
communications systems which are relatively independent of
both the state and the market, and policies which aim to marginalise
or eradicate them (Murdock, 1992: 18). The object is to create
a new kind of public communicative space, rooted in a constructive engagement with emerging
patterns of political and cultural diversity (Murdock, 1992: 40).8
One of the most difficult conceptual new fields to open is
that which seeks to look beyond the exclusivity of traditional
institutions to imagine new vehicles for meeting public service
objectives. Here, a progressive approach to public broadcasting
can take a page from experiences with development. Indeed,
strategic intervention in broadcasting can take a page from the
sustainable development model. Development theory, once built
around the idea that the introduction of full-blown communication
systems to traditional societies would hasten modernization
and hence economic, social and political development,
has gradually adjusted to the notion that small-scale horizontal
communication operating at the grassroots level can be more
beneficial in fostering autonomy and endogenous development
(O Siochru, 1992).
In this context, small scale media technologies, opportunities
for indigenous cultural expression through such means as theatre,
puppetry and video, exchanges between communities via computer,
telecommunication and broadcasting, can often be more
appropriate for meeting the objectives of democratic communication
than conventional broadcasting institutions centrally organized
at the national level. In countries where these do not even
exist, it can be more politically fruitful to conceive of meeting
public service broadcasting objectives at the community level.
This does not obviate the need for national broadcasting, but as
with so many development issues, the choices to be made involve
strategic priorities. In fact, the social demand for local and regional
broadcasting is pronounced even in the most developed countries,
and one of the most bitterly expressed criticisms of the
dominant national public service broadcasters is their tendency
to abandon local and regional needs as they retrench around
high-profile prestigious national services.

Public Service Broadcasting: the World Situation

In this section, I shall develop a typology of the various existing
models of broadcasting one encounters in the contemporary
broadcasting environment. Such an exercise is necessarily fraught
with pitfalls, and requires some indulgence on the part of the
reader. The typology is meant to be inclusive rather than exhaustive,
insofar as it aims to provide an accurate portrayal of existing
types, without pretending to cover every particular situation.
Let me first of all distinguish between two general levels,
which I call the systemic and the institutional. To clarify this
distinction. a mixed broadcasting system in which one finds both
public service and private commercial broadcasters is a type of
systemic model; a national public service broadcaster, a private
enterprise broadcaster, or a community broadcaster is an institutional
model.
Despite the rapid movement towards globalization, broadcasting
is still legally constituted within the confines of national
borders. Although there is a great variety in degree of attention by
the worlds 200-odd national states, every state must at some
point take some fundamental decisions about broadcasting, if
only to consider the allocation of frequencies to which it is entitled
by international conventions. The immediate result of these
decisions is a national broadcasting system in every country,
made up of one or more component parts.
Despite the great variety from one country to the next, we can
essentially identify three types of core system, that is, systems
which while possibly encompassing other forms of broadcasting,
are essentially built around a core constituted by a particular
institutional model. The notion of core includes a strong historical
component, because as we shall see, in many cases the current
context is marked by an important movement away from the traditional
basis of national broadcasting, towards something else
which may not yet be easy to define. At present, we can identify
three principal types of broadcasting system, namely (i) public
service core systems, (ii) private enterprise core systems, and
(iii) state core systems. The latter category is further characterized
by sub-divisions that we can identify as residual, emergent and
transitional.

Public Service Core Systems

These systems have evolved around the former public service
monopolies (most of Western Europe), or where independent
public service broadcasters have historically occupied the centre
of the system (Canada, Australia, Japan). The dominant model in
Western Europe until the 1980s, public service monopolies were
characterized by their strong public service remits and the lack of
direct competition, as well as a relative degree of autonomy from
the state, varying from country to country according to national
tradition. Nearly all of these have become mixed ownership systems
today, and some would argue that tradit ional public broadcasting
is becoming increasingly peripheral with the rise of the
market sector in many of these countries, to the point that it can
even be considered a residual form on its way out. This is doubtless
too apocalyptic a view, especially if one considers that in
some of these same cases, the system as a whole is still legally constituted
as a public service. In any event, no country has done
away with conventional public service broadcasting, and wherever
it exists no important development in broadcasting can fail to
take it into account.9
Mixed public -private ownership systems were pioneered in
Canada and Australia in the era of radio. In Europe, Britain and
Finland have had television duopolies since the 1950s.
Increasingly the dominant model in Western Europe, and a moreor-
less explicit goal in many other parts of the world, mixed systems
are characterized either by the economic insulation of one
sector from the other (as in Australia, the UK or Sweden, where
public service broadcasting is out of the advertising market), or by
competition for advertising (the extreme example being Spain,
where public television is exclusively financed by advertising, the
same as the private sector). As public broadcasters become
providers of subscription-based services, this area is opening up to
financial competition as well. Mixed systems are characterized by
strong competition for audiences and, in the older systems with
strong public service traditions, by regulatory requirements to
ensure that private sector broadcasting contributes to the overall
welfare of the community and to the social and cultural objectives
of broadcasting.
We can also distinguish between the mature mixed systems
of the older, more stable democracies with relatively strong
economies, and the immature ones of emergent and transitional
societies. Mature mixed systems, such as Canadas, are also
characterized by various forms of cross-subsidization leading to
an increasing hybridization of both public and private broadcasting
(for example, the presence of advertising, or the availability of
public funding for broadcast production, equally available to
both public and private sector broadcasters). Competition tends
to be more severe in the younger mixed systems (for example,
France or Sweden), but is generally leading to a disturbing flattening
of the recognizable distinction between public and private
broadcasting (Atkinson, 1993; Paracuellos, 1993; Achille and
Mige, 1994). To some analysts, however, the mixed ownership
structure is still a far preferable guarantee of broadcasting pluralism
and diversity than the private enterprise core model that is
held up as the alternative (Syvertsen, 1994).

Private Enterprise Core Systems

These are those national systems built around commercial broadcasting
practices, where the role of the state has traditionally been
limited to frequency allocation and regulation of privately-owned
broadcasting undertakings. The most important example of such
a system is obviously the United States. Private enterprise core
systems are the rule in most of Latin America and parts of Asia,
and have played an important role historically in cross-border
commercial broadcasting originating from countries such as
Luxembourg. A private enterprise core system is not necessarily
incompatible with attempting to regulate broadcasting in the
public interest, as the US Federal Communications Commission
experience illustrates. In most countries where the mainstream of
broadcasting is in the private sector, alternative forms have arisen
to provide the range of programming that would not normally
find its way into the schedules of commercially-driven broadcasters.
The best example of this is the US itself, and its National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting
System. In much of Latin
America, the main alternative to private enterprise broadcasting is
community-based.

State Broadcasting Core Systems

These systems include the residual systems of countries which
have not yet broken with the tradition of a single, monolithic
national broadcaster, 10 as well as emergent systems which,
although built around a state-owned and controlled broadcaster,
are opening up to alternative commercial and community voices,
such as one finds in parts of Asia and Africa where democratization
is on the agenda. Many countries in those regions are seeking
to develop new models appropriate to their particular needs, and
emergent systems are currently experimenting with various combinations
of public, private and community elements in a perspective
that views broadcasting as a resource for social development.
South Africa, where a nominally public service broadcaster was for
so many years one of the main political instruments of the
apartheid state, provides one of the more stunning examples of
what we call an emergent broadcasting system. 11
The former Soviet-bloc countries of East-Central Europe and
the ex-USSR provide a particular sub-group here which we would
describe as transitional, insofar as they seem to be more inclined
towards the existing dominant models. Here, pluralistic broadcasting
systems are being established on the foundations of former
state authoritarian monopolies. These vary widely at the
present time, and are evolving so rapidly that any attempt at
detailed classification is bound to be quickly eclipsed by events.
Generally, all of these countries have introduced some form of
private sector commercial broadcasting and retained some form
of government-owned broadcasting that could be plotted more or
less on a continuum from state control to arms length. Some
have also grappled with the objective of setting up West European
style public broadcasters, as well as allowing space for a civic or
community sector.12
One of the striking characteristics of the current world situation
is the remarkable cross-fertilization of various broadcasting
forms, resulting in a rapid shrinking of systemic differences across the core systems that have just
been described. Indeed, it is obvious
that we are moving towards a global media system requiring
that broadcasting issues be addressed, eventually, in a global political
forum. 13 But there are still vast differences between specific
types of broadcasting undertakings, which makes it important for us
to address the second level of our typology: institutional models.
By institutional models, we mean the particular forms of
broadcasting one finds across the range of existing core systems.
These are characterized by different forms of ownership and control,
mandate, modes of financing, types of content and relationship
to their audience. Institutional broadcasting types are not
autonomous of the systems in which they develop, and often
exist in symbiotic relationship with their neighbors. The main
general categories are as follows: (i) national public service broadcasting;
(ii) alternative public broadcasting; (iii) privately-owned
commercial broadcasting; (iv) multiple ownership services (public -
public or public -private partnerships and joint ventures);
(v) community broadcasting; and (vi) state broadcasting.
While certain systems and institutions could prove difficult to
categorize precisely, this typology is sufficiently inclusive to
enable us to determine the main trends and tendencies in broadcasting
in the world today. In addition, recognizing the different
institutional models can be of important suggestive value to
broadcasting planners and policy makers.

National Public Service Broadcasting

This model is characterized by a more or less independent status
vis--vis the national state; more or less because, in spite of a legal
arms length relationship to the government of the day, crucial
aspects such as funding and administrative structure are still subject
to political decisions.14 National public service broadcasters
exhibit a wide range of sub-types distinguished by finding, mandate,
and relationship to the commercial sector (Paradis, 1994).
Theoretically, funding can come from either a licence fee, a direct
government subsidy, advertising, subscription, or some combination
thereof. In Europe, the BBC, for example, is funded strictly
by licence fee, while Spains TVE is exclusively advertising-based.
Canadas CBC and the Australian ABC receive annual parliamentary appropriations,
supplemented in the Canadian case by
television advertising. Japans NHK is financed mainly by a voluntary
contract with television-owners. In all of these countries,
the continued purpose and legal remit of the conventional
national public service broadcasters is at the heart of the debate
on the future of public service broadcasting, but it is crucial to
distinguish between the critique of the role of the traditional
national public broadcasters and continued support for the idea
of public broadcasting. 15 An important by-product of the critique
of public broadcasting institutions has been the proliferation
of new types of public broadcasting services, especially since
the 1980s.

Alternative Public Broadcasting

In this category we can group the second services spun off of the
national public broadcasting institutions in many countries with
public service core systems. These are usually specifically mandated,
for example, to serve minority taste cultures, or regional
broadcasting needs, or in some cases (example, Sweden), were created
simply to provide a second programme choice in the days of
the public service monopoly. More interesting examples as a distinct
model are the more recent cases, such as Britains Channel 4,
the Australian Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), or the French-
German cultural channel ARTE.16 These are all examples of independent
broadcasters with distinct public service remits set up by
national governments outside of the institutional structures of the
main public broadcasting organizations.
The political peculiarities of certain countries with public
broadcasting traditions have also resulted in structures created by
less than national public authorities, such as the Canadian
provincial educational television services, or the channels based
in Spains autonomous regions (Garitaonandia, 1993). The existence
of a range of services distinguished by type of ownership,
control, financing, mandate, and target audience usually adds
significantly to overall programme diversity and is a good indicator
of systemic balance between generalist and specific ally targeted
forms of public broadcasting. The American PBS service,
although created as an alternative to mainstream commercial
broadcasting in the prototypical private enterprise core system,
should also be included here.

Privately-owned Commercial Broadcasting

Increasingly universal, insofar as it is now to be found everywhere
outside the monolithic state-core systems (Switzerland being a
rare exception), private enterprise broadcasting is nonetheless
characterized by important differentiation according to scope,
type of service, and ownership. Channel proliferation, globalization
and narrowcasting are quickly making the conventional US
network model archaic, even as it is only being introduced in
many parts of the world. Conventional advertising-based broadcasting
is being squeezed by the arrival of subscriber-based and
video-on-demand - services. The response has been the wave of
mergers between broadcasters, production companies and owners
of distribution networks (cable and satellite companies), and the
tendency towards internationalization and the creation of global
multimedia conglomerates. At the same time, commercial broadcasting
is subject to local regulation which varies greatly from
country to country, and in some countries private broadcasters
are required to make specific contributions to meeting national
objectives in broadcasting. In the emergent and transitional former
state core systems, commercial broadcasting is often at the
cutting edge of shaping the new systems, especially where it is driven
by independent local forces.

Multiple Ownership Services

The hybridization of broadcasting services that has accompanied
channel proliferation has also given rise to new partnerships
between public broadcasters and private companies. Various speciality
services in Canada, or the BBCs new global broadcasting
channels in partnership with Pearson PLC are examples of this. In
Russia, the conversion of Ostankino into a 51-49% joint venture
of the Russian state and private enterprise may become a prototype
for the creation of new public broadcasting services in transitional
systems (although the extent to which such services can
be considered public remains dubious; see Richter, 1995). One
should also include in this category a number of unique example s
of multinational services with public service briefs, such as the
international Francophone Channel TV5 or the previously-mentioned
ARTE.17

Community Broadcasting
Often too quickly dismissed as marginal, community broadcasting
encompasses the proliferation of autonomous, often highly
localized undertakings which have neither a commercial motivation
nor the backing of state authorities as principals (while
exhibiting characteristics of both private and public broadcasting,
sometimes constituting vital alternatives to dominant monopolistic
forms). In some situations, community broadcasting enjoys
official legal status and is entitled to space in the system provided
it can find the necessary resources.
Community broadcasting generally has little access to conventional
funding sources, being of limited interest to advertisers
(where regulation does not exclude it from the advertising market),
and coming far behind conventional public service broadcasting
as a priority for public finding. Nonetheless, community
broadcasting is often an appropriate vehicle for combining democratic,
grass-roots participation and public policy objectives,
notably in the area of development. Autonomous community
broadcasting can usually count on broad public support, but this
is not always sufficient to enable sustained activity. Since the mid-
1980s, community radio and video producers have established
themselves globally through organizations such as the World
Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) and
the international video association Vidazimut. Along with free
enterprise broadcasting, community broadcasting is probably
the most widespread model, found nearly everywhere in a wide
variety of forms (see for example, Thede and Ambrosi, 1991;
Girard, 1992; Jankowski, Prehn and Stappers, 1992; Lewis, 1993;
Rushton, 1993).

State Broadcasting
As opposed to models based in the private sector or in independent
public sector institutions, a range of countries still retain
close control over broadcasting activities - with a greater or lesser
degree of autonomy for actual broadcasting systems. But state
broadcasting can refer to a broader range of activities, including
national broadcasting in state core systems of the emergent and
transitional types described above, and international broadcasting
aimed abroad by countries using broadcasting as an instrument of
foreign policy, as well as broadcasting in general in countries with
monolithic media systems. State broadcasting is not only antithetical
to public service broadcasting, it is too easily confused
with the idea of state intervention at the legislative or regulatory
level in order to provide a public interest framework for broadcasting
activity, particularly by critics arguing for the free market
model.

Prospective for Public Service Broadcasting

Having reflected on the idea of public service broadcasting, and
developed a typology of the main systemic and institutional
broadcasting models to be found in the world today, it is now
time to clarify our conception of public service broadcasting in
the new world context, the role that could be played by a range of
broadcasting institutions with public service briefs, and strategies
for dealing with various previously identified constraints.
By linking the idea of public broadcasting to the notion of citizenship,
we saw that it was necessary to guarantee its delinking
from both the political authority of the state and the economic
arbitrage of the market. The key to this is not so much a particular
structure or finding formula, but a set of objectives and practices,
based on democratic principles and the view that broadcasting can
be a means of social and cultural development.
Our overview of the world situation enabled us to appreciate
the wealth of the experience of actually-existing broadcasting. It
also hints that there is no perfect model for public service broadcasting,
but some models are closer than others to enabling the
fulfilment of public broadcasting ideals.
.
I would now like to suggest some approaches to a number of
contemporary broadcasting issues. These are not proposals,
which would imply a dose of pragmatism that I prefer to leave to
others for the moment, but rather, a way of looking at and thinking
about public broadcasting, which suggests measures that,
independent of their political feasibility, might actually make
sense.
The history of broadcasting everywhere up to and including
the present has shown that only through sustained public policy
action can the medium begin to fulfil its potential. Historically, a
combination of public pressure, enlightened self-interest and a
favorable socio-political moment led governments in a number
of mainly European countries to create public broadcasting institutions,
placing them at arms length from politics and sheltering
them from the effects of commerce. Wherever this model was followed,
public broadcasting became the central institution of the
democratic public sphere, taking on increasing importance as
broadcasting came to occupy more and more public space and
time, and playing an important role in the democratization of
public life.
Independence from politics and autonomy from the market
have become the leading criteria for the definition of public
space, but these have become relative values as broadcasting has
spread and developed world-wide. No broadcasting organization
today can function obliviously to market pressure and if politics
is more acutely present in some situations than others, it is never
far from the centre. More significantly, public broadcasting has
had to face a rising tide of skepticism and political will, and its
recent evolution has been characterized by a struggle over decline,
change and renewal (Tracey, 1994).
At the same time, however, the limitations of market broadcasting,
wonderful as a delivery vehicle for popular mass entertainment,
have become strikingly evident (Garnham, 1994). The
multi-channel environment provides a double -barrelled challenge
for public broadcasting, obliging conventional broadcasters to
adapt and opening the way to new possibilities (Avery, 1993). In
the emerging democracies, particularly, the balancing act is to juggle
the structural difficulty of creating new public broadcasting institutions and the pressures for
integration to the global broadcasting market.
Broadcasting was conceived for commercial purposes, but
public broadcasting was introduced for purposes of cultural
development and democratization. By creating appropriate institutions
and developing public policy accordingly, various state
authorities placed broadcasting in the public interest. There is no
reason why this can not continue to be done today.
For this to occur, every jurisdiction first of all needs to have
clear public policy objectives for broadcasting. Next, authorities
need to recognize the necessity of independence for broadcasting
organizations. Broadcasters, in exchange, need to accept accountability
mechanisms which ensure the responsible exercise of their
mandates (Blumler and Hoffmann-Riem, 1992). Finally, the
broadcasting environment needs to be organized and structured
in such a way as to maximize the use that can be made of all the
resources flowing through the system.
This would require something akin to the socialization of the
broadcasting sector. There is no justification for the removal of
surplus value from the lucrative branches of broadcasting activity
so long as public interest broadcasting objectives can not be met
without public subsidy. Private sector broadcasting should have
statutory obligations to contribute to overall systemic objectives,
and public broadcasters should be allowed to engage in commercially
lucrative activities without being obliged to compete with
themselves in order to make ends meet.
Especially given the new technological context of the multichannel
environment, it is possible to organize broadcasting to
encompass both market activities and public service, to maximize
both consumer choice and citizenship programming. People
watch programmes, not channels, and consequently the appropriate
point for competition in broadcasting is the point of programme
supply, with independent production companies vying
for programme contracts from public service broadcasters.
Construction and maintenance of technical infrastructure can
remain in the market sector but delivery service should be subject
to regulated tariffs.

On the other hand, programming should be done by public

corporations, in consultation with representative users councils.
Suppose that in a given jurisdiction, there were two public broadcasting
corporations. Corporation A would have a mandate of
doing generalist public interest programming, while Corporation
Bs mandate would be to seek large audiences. Corporation As
work could be subsidized by the profits generated by Corporation
B. Thanks to the availability of multiple channels and video
recording and playback technology, the public interest objectives
of both citizenship and consumer sovereignty could be met without
the information and resource loss brought on by public -private
competition. Yet there would be room in such a system for a
private sector of regulated carriers and competitive content
providers. There would also be room for a variety of public services
from the national to the local levels.
Since the early 1980s, broadcasting has been a site of ideological
conflict between opposing models of society, a clash of concepts
of democracy as well as notions of culture and economics
(Rowland and Tracey, 1990). According to one side in this conflict,
the general interest demands that there be public institutions
mandated to intervene strategically to guarantee quality, diversity
and independence in broadcasting that other institutional
arrangements can not ensure; the other view holds that regulation
and public policy regarding media are neither necessary nor legitimate.
Advocates of the public service approach to broadcasting
must demonstrate concretely what institutional arrangements can
be expected to meet their objectives and why these are possible
only through regulation and public policy (Hoffmann-Riem,
1992). First of all, they must demonstrate what public service
broadcasting should do in the new broadcasting environment,
and especially, what distinguishes public from private sector
broadcasting (see for example, Wolton, 1992a).
Private broadcasting, it may be argued, can also fulfil public
service goals. However, it is unlikely that it would bother to try, if
it were not pushed in that direction by the competition and
example of public broadcasters. This points to one of the most
subtle arguments in favour of public broadcasting: public broadcasting
sets the overall tone of the market, acts as a catalyst and
serves as an example to all broadcasting services (Hultn, 1995). It
also points to the need to conceptualize broadcasting as an ecological
environment, requiring a healthy diet of balanced offerings
as well as nurturing and protection (Raboy, 1993). Balance
has until recently been guaranteed by the distinction between
public and private services, but it is now threatened by two phenomena:
the systemic disequilibrium shifting strongly towards
private commercial services and the effects of commercialization
on public services.
This shift can only be counterbalanced by an opposite one:
creation of more public service mandated organizations, and
removal of the pressure to meet commercial criteria. Overriding
this is the legitimization of legally framing broadcasting as a public
service, and consequently, considering the overall broadcasting
framework as a public service environment. It is at this level that
one should look at political developments such as the Council of
Europe resolution referred to at the start of this Chapter. However,
one has to go further to foresee a specific role for public service
institutions. It is private sector broadcasting that should be conceptualized
as the complementary form, providing services that
public institutions can afford to abandon, not vice versa as at present.
We need a world declaration situating broadcasting as a public
service, comprised of different elements each with specific
structural arrangements and purposes, but all dedicated to the
improvement of humankind. On the basis of such a global position,
individual political units could legitimately set public policy
for broadcasting on their territory.
All broadcasting, to be successful, must be programme-driven.
But public broadcasting is policy-motivated while private
broadcasting is profit-motivated. Public broadcasting is broadcasting
with a purpose: to enhance the quality of public life,
empowering individuals and social groups to participate more fully
and equitably. Profit-motivated broadcasting is only interested
in large audiences. Policy-motivated broadcasting is interested in
reaching the largest possible audience the most effectively, in light
of the specific objective of the programme concerned.
Broadcasters have their own technical language for measuring
this: private broadcasters, they say, are concerned with audience
share, the number of people watching or listening at any point in
time, while public broadcasters are concerned with reach, the
number of people who tune in over a period of time. There is
another characteristic to consider, but it is difficult to measure:
the intensity of the experience, and its impact on ones life. Public
broadcasting aims to touch people, to move them, to change
them. Private broadcasting, by nature, aims to put them in the
mood to consume and above all, to consume more of what private
broadcasting has to offer.
This may appear to be a crude set of distinctions, but more
important to consider is the extent to which existing public
broadcasting has integrated the objectives of private broadcasting.
Indeed, a common lament in countries where broadcasting is the
most developed, is that it is increasingly difficult to distinguish
the programmes of public from those of private broadcasting.
This is especially the case where both sectors provide advertising.
Legislators and policy makers are more to blame than broadcasters
for this state of affairs. By obliging public broadcasters to compete
with private broadcasters on their terrain, the quest for the
mass audience, we have flattened the difference. To the contrary,
where private broadcasting has been obliged to compete with
public broadcasting on the terrain of quality programming, the
overall quality of broadcasting service has been raised.
A fundamental aspect of broadcasting as public service is universality
of access. This is increasingly problematic as broadcasting
evolves towards a pick-and-choose model analogous to the
news-stand, where a variety of services are offered and the consumer
selects and pays for his or her choice. In this context, it is
essential that public broadcasting provides first of all a generalist
programme service available to all and, ideally, free of charge to
the user. As we move towards newer and more elaborate signal
delivery systems, public authorities will have to ensure that everyone
has access to the systems where public service is provided. At
the same time, systems will have to be organized so as to avoid
creating situations where better, more interesting, more rewarding,
and ultimately more empowering services are available on
higher broadcast tiers at prices which exclude users on the basis
of ability to pay.
This is the basis of the arguments for a public lane on the
information highway that public interest groups and non-government organizations are putting
forth in national and international
debates on the new information infrastructures. The issue is
larger than broadcasting, but broadcasting is at the cutting edge.
Technological convergence is going to require new conceptual
and operational models for content-based electronic communication,
but regardless of the future of conventional broadcasting in
this context, the promotion of the public interest can only come
through regulation guaranteeing system access for all those with
something to communicate as well as for receivers.
Where is the money to come from? First of all, to the extent
that political authorities, with public support, are prepared to
make broadcasting a priority, it can come from the collective
resources of society itself In Canada, one recent proposal estimated
that the shortfall in projected budget cuts to public broadcasting
could be met by reducing a projected increase in military
spending by 1%. As stated at the outset of this Chapter, it is a
question of political will. There is no escaping the necessity of
public subsidy for public service, but even so, major portion of
the required funding can come from within the system itself. If
broadcasting is recognized as a public service, the redistribution
of benefits from commercial activity to subsidize the rest is a legitimate
measure.

Concluding Remarks
In the context of globalization, and the development of a global
infrastructure for information and communication, the question
of public broadcasting takes on a new international dimension as
well. According to the head of the International Telecommunications
Union, in the area of information infrastructures, the
gap between the information rich and the information poor is
several orders of magnitude wider than in the area of basic service
(Tarjanne, 1995). In the context of the information highway,
all the more reason to emphasize public services, as an equalizer,
a leveller of the playing field, and an essential component of
communication policies for development (see, for example,
L Afrique face aux autoroutes de linformation, 1995). Alongside the
calls for national and global infrastructures emanating from the
centre of the world media and economic system, we are starting
to hear calls for a public information infrastructure geared to
the democratic rights of citizens, as well as for a global sustainable
development infrastructure (Schreibman, Prie st and Moore,
1995).
The question of public service broadcasting is at the heart of
contemporary media politics (Siune and Truetzschler, 1992). It
preoccupies those who would still ascribe a social purpose to mass
communication but fear that such a mission has been bypassed in
the new world order dominated by unrelenting technological and
market forces. But this is the short view. The question of public
service broadcasting cries out for new approaches that look
beyond the obvious and do not shrink from challenging received
wisdom (Gustaffson, 1992). The challenge is not to defend any
particular institutional territory, as it is often framed. It is rather
how to invent something new, remembering that broadcasting
service is first of all a public good.

Notes
1. Summarized, the nine points state that public broadcasting should provide:
(i) a common reference point for all members of the public; (ii) a forum for
broad public discussion; (iii) impartial news coverage; (iv) pluralistic, innovative
and varied programming; (v) programming which is both of wide public
interest and attentive to the needs of minorities; (vi) reflection of the
different ideas and beliefs in pluri-ethnic and multi-cultural societies; (vii)
diversity of national and European cultural heritage; (viii) original productions
by independent producers; and (ix) extended viewer and listener
choice by offering programmes not provided by the commercial sector
(Council of Europe, 1994).
2. See Raboy (1996) which reports on a study undertaken jointly by the World
Council for Radio and Television and the Communication Policy Research
Laboratory (Department of Communication) of the University of Montreal
with the support of UNESCO and the Canadian International Development
Agency.
3. The Cable News Network was founded in Atlanta in 1980, and launched its
international satellite channel five years later.
4. Writing and critical concern about broadcasting tends to focus on television,
and that is reflected here. When we speak about broadcasting in this
chapter, however, we are referring to both radio and television.
5. The 1 billion television sets in the world in 1992 were distributed roughly as
follows: 35% Europe (including former USSR) 32% Asia; 20% North
America (and Caribbean); 8% Latin America; 4% Middle East; 1% Africa.
Set ownership was rising at a rate of 5% a year, and world spending on television
programmes was $80 billion (The Economist, 1994, based on
UNESCO figures).
6. The paradoxical by-products of globalization in broadcasting are countless.
Here is just to consider: the US public broadcasting service (PBS) has
a larger audience share per capita in Canada than in the United States
(Paradis, 1994).
7. By cultural development, I mean the process by which human beings
acquire the individual and collective resources necessary to participate in
public life (Raboy, Bernier, Sauvageau and Atkinson, 1994: 292).
8. Conceptualizing the public as citizen also requires a less paternalistic attitude
towards the citizen as consumer. John Reith would no doubt recoil at
the suggestion of his countryman Alan Peacock that public funding be used
in ways which encourage consumers to widen their experience of cultural
activities and which promote freedom of entry into the culture market so
that cultural innovators can challenge well-established institutions
(Peacock, 1991: 11). In other words, invest public money at the point of consumption
as well as production, in the hope of stimulating demand and letting
the market mechanism replace bureaucratic choice. This is not likely to
enamour the public broadcasters but it could have a salutary effect on public
broadcasting.
9. The UK still provides in many respects the most stimulating model of this
type, in the systems adaptiveness to new public service needs, a comprehensive
funding formula, evident public support, and resistance to the domineering
tendencies of various government agendas, be they economic or
political.
10. There is deliberately both a value judgement and an element of prognosis in
our characterization of these systems as residual.
11. The perils of such systems of classification become evident, however, as
soon as one studies specific cases. India is an example which defies simple
classification because of the particular historical role of the national broadcaster
Doordarshan. Some might wish to debate whether Indias should be
considered a public service or a state broadcasting core system and if the latter,
whether it should be considered emerging or residual. For that matter,
there is often a fine line between public service and state broadcasting in
every country, particularly in time of political crisis, and it could be argued
that the ultimate legal authority of the state over broadcasting extends to the
private enterprise core systems as well. Suffice it to say that a typology may
be useful for general analytical purposes, but detailed examination of cases
is bound to be more revealing.
12. See Kleinwachter (1995). KIeinwachter describes an ideal participatory
model which Central and East European media activists sought to implement
in the period immediately following the events of 1989. Such a
model would have combined US First Amendment freedom of expression
rights; the British concept of broadcasting as public service; Germanys constitutional
legal guarantees of broadcasting freedom; Frances protection of
national culture and language; international notions of the right to communicate;
Dutch pluralism; Scandinavian approaches to local broadcasting and
state subsidies without government control; and Luxembourgian economic
liberalism. The evolution of broadcasting in these countries has taken a less
idealistic path, however, which Kleinwachter breaks into four stages:
(1) awakening to the new media freedoms; (2) disillusionment; (3) political
struggles over control of media, especially national television; and finally, the
present stage, (4) the building of new institutions, public and private, based
on law, independent of government control, competing under market conditions,
and seeking to integrate into translational European broadcasting
frameworks and structures. Varying from one country to the next, the basic
thrust is the replacement of monopolistic state-owned, party-controlled systems
with independent ones but, in general, ... the new broadcasting systems
in the former East bloc, confronted with the realities of daily life, now have
the choice between domestic governmental control and foreign commercial
control (KIeinwachter, 1995: 44).
13. In Europe, it is also possible to identify an international (or regional in global
terms) broadcasting system, to the extent that the European Union seeks
to influence broadcasting development, but broadcasting is still legally constituted
and regulated nationally by each member state, albeit with respect
to Union regulations (see Venturelli, 1994).
14. See the German Constitutional Court decision of February 1994, ruling that
the funding of public broadcasting should be constitutionally guaranteed
and insulated from the variable humour of political decision-making. The
Court bases its argument for enshrining the financial independence of public
service broadcasting in law on the position that private broadcasting
alone can not fulfil the public service mission of broadcasting (Eberle, 1994).
15. See Syvertsen (1992). In Scandinavia particularly, the broadcasting debate is
tied to the general critique of the welfare state bureaucracy. See Hultn,
1992; Prehn and Jensen, 1993; Sepstrup, 1993.
16. Regarding this second channel model, see Chaniac and Jzquel (1993).
Generally, the legitimating logic of this type of channel is audience reach
rather than share. The issue of mainstream generalist versus specialized cultural
programming is of considerable polemical debate among advocates of
public service broadcasting in some countries; see for example, the exchange
between Dominique Wolton (1992b) and Jerme Clment (1992) in Le
Monde on the occasion of the launching of ARTE.
17. Interestingly, one finds in this category examples of national, international,
and global broadcasting services. While the definition of national service is
obvious enough, we can consider an international service to be one based
on participation by at least two countries, and a global service as a broadcast
undertaking emanating from a single centre and aimed at a world-wide
audience.