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For the past two decades or more, public service broadcasting has been facing stiff competition from its commercial counterparts. Cable, satellite and terrestrial commercial broadcasters have unleashed a competitive assault for the advertising dollar and, in the process, broadcasting content has witnessed a significant decline in terms of quality. Commercial logic dominates the global broadcasting landscape today, with little concern for public interest and for the need to inform and educate citizens to understand the complex challenges of the world they live in.This book contains a compendium of critical essays that outline the issues and challenges faced by public service broadcasters around the world. It provides valuable insights into specific national public service broadcasting experiences, while highlighting a range of common issues faced by public service broadcasters in different national contexts.Case studies and the experiences of twelve countries are covered, giving a global perspective on the state of public service broadcasting in the age of globalization. ... Read more

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IRIS Special's approach to its content is tri-dimensional, with overlap in some cases, depending on the theme.It offers:1. a detailed survey of relevant national legislation to facilitate comparison of the legal position in different countries, for example IRIS Special: "Broadcasters' Obligations to Invest in Cinematographic Production" describes the rules applied by 34 European states;2. identification and analysis of highly relevant issues, covering legal developments and trends as well as suggested solutions: for example IRIS Special, "Audiovisual Media Services without Frontiers - Implementing the Rules" offers a forward-looking analysis that will continue to be relevant long after the adoption of the EC Directive;3. an outline of the European or international legal context influencing the national legislation, for example IRIS Special: "To Have to Have - Must-carry Rules" explains the European model and compares it with the American approach. ... Read more

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Public service broadcasting is currently going through a crisis period. The latest Government White Paper proposes some of the most radical reforms in broadcasting history. However as this book makes clear, these reforms are an extension of a debate that has run along very traditional lines. At its inception four features were considered central to public service broadcasting: it was protected from purely commercial pressures, it aimed to serve the whole nation, it was a monopoly and it aimed to have a high standard of programmes. At various time these have come under critical scrutiny, particularly with the arrival of independent television in 1954 which broke the BBC monopoly. The technological developments that have characterized broadcasting in recent years threaten changes that are at least as profound. This book traces the development of public service broadcasting by providing a series of extracts which illustrate key aspects of the major debates. ... Read more

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Few will deny that public service broadcasting¿broadcasting that is controlled neither by the state nor by private media corporations¿is an essential ingredient in modern democracy. But, as a number of initiatives in transition economies have shown, the inception and development of a strong public broadcasting system is a Herculean task that is easily sidetracked by politics or ideology, or stalled by lack of funding. Especially when state budgets are stretched, the expense is hard to justify.

This collection of documents, comments, and cases brings all the major issues in public service broadcasting policy into focus and sets the problems to be addressed in sharp relief. It draws on white papers from NGOs and broadcasters, legislation from a wide range of countries (and a model law), accounts of public broadcasting efforts in transition states, analyses of evolving policy in established systems, government regulatory guidelines, and a great deal more. Among the matters touched upon are the following:

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This book examines the place of interculturalism in Irish public service broadcasting in the context of a new commitment to the concept made by RTÉ in 2007. It first traces the history of interculturalism in Irish public service broadcasting and sets out the present day reality of a newly heterogeneous Ireland. The book then uses exclusive access to internal documents arising from this commitment to analyse the station's plans to transform its organisation and its output to greet the new diversity. The book details the findings of a series of 11 interviews with seven key RTÉ personnel across all major output areas and five New Nationals, four of whom are broadcasters themselves. These interviews reveal a spectrum of opinion about the issue as well as highlighting potential barriers to change. The book examines many aspects of the issue such as: the depiction of New Nationals on news reports; the question of dedicated intercultural programming; plans for the station to mainstream its intercultural content throughout it schedules; the role of the Internet in RTÉ catering for New Nationals; and a new effort to hire intercultural personnel in all areas of RTÉ, including on-air roles. ... Read more

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As logical as the existence and role of Public Service Broadcasters seemed to be in the era of broadcasting monopolies, it is equally natural today to question public involvement in the media. Is there still a need for public broadcasters? What are their cultural obligations, political role and remit in the dual European media market? Which changes will new media, the internet, and digital technology bring, and what impact will they have on the media market? Do the public media really make a difference, or are they dinosaurs threatened with extinction in the new and unfamiliar media landscape of modern Europe? ... Read more

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Public broadcasting is arguably the single most important social, cultural, and journalistic institution of the twentieth century. In the past 15 years it has been assaulted politically, ideologically, technologically, and is everywhere in retreat. This book considers the "idea" of public service broadcasting and examines in detail the assault made upon it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Sound analysis of a bygone era in broadcasting
Until quite recently, most mass media system analyses differentiated between the European and American models of broadcasting. The first one is a national public monopoly. Regulated and financed by the state, it enjoys various degrees of political freedom in terms of program policies. In some cases, like that of Britain's BBC, the broadcasters manage to resist government influence on content. Occasionally, the public monopoly will share airwaves with a private broadcaster, usually a private monopoly (like Britain's ITV), making the system a duopoly. Still, the distinguishing characteristics of the West European model was its domination by a strong public broadcaster.

In contrast, the American model has had a thoroughly commercial character that can be traced back to radio days when big private investors were awarded frequencies over public, educational applicants. Reflective of its culture, the American model is based on the country's predominant values of individual initiative and economic freedom. Consequently, the U.S. television market is characterized by the domination of strong private networks and a marginal position of PBS, a public service broadcasting network formed by Lyndon Johnson as late as 1967.

Indeed, for several post-war decades both models coexisted with little policy exchange. However, the above distinction has become to a large extent obsolete.

The 1980s and 1990s saw an unprecedented series of changes in ownership patterns and regulation of the American media, culminating in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The four major TV networks became part of huge business conglomerates; media outlets have been merging vertically and horizontally. Deregulating the system, the American government has encouraged further monopolization, conglomerization, and commercialization of the media. Consequently, the position of PBS has been subject to further marginalization. After all, the use people make of their media is mainly a reflection of the prevailing climate of the times. Moreover, deregulation is now being applied in Europe as well, bringing more changes in the international media landscape.

In his analysis, Michael Tracey gives priority to one aspect of that metamorphosis-the idea of public service broadcasting. Far from deeming the West European model underdeveloped or plagued by political dependence, he holds public broadcasting to be "the single most important social, cultural, and journalistic institution of the twentieth century." Tracing the roots of its origin and successive stages of application, Tracey primarily looks at Germany's NWDR, Japan's NHK, America's PBS, and Great Britain's BBC, whose early 1960s incarnation is regarded "a high-water mark of public service broadcasting." He defines public service broadcaster as one whose programming is widely available, caters to minorities, serves the public sphere, displays a strong commitment to the education of the public, and competes for quality rather than ratings.

Much as Tracey symphatizes with the idea that broadcasting involves a moral, intellectual, and educational mission apart from any technological or financial considerations, he is skeptical about the future of the idea. Charting the threats and challenges posed to it since mid1980s by new technologies (cable and satellite TV, video, Internet), tendency toward government withdrawal (cutting spending), and dislike of cultural elitism (people have the right to choose), Tracey says the preservation of public service broadcasting "will be more akin to the preservation of primeval bugs in amber than the continuance of any vibrant cultural species."

That is particularly self-apparent in view of the truisms he offers concerning the future of audio-visual culture such as: proliferation of sources; commercial rather than state funding, government self-withdrawal to encourage new technologies, increase in broadcasters' difficulty to reach large audiences with informative and educational programming, globalization of the market model, and the rise of the masses rather than elites as trend-setters.

Despite his ironic treatment of the viewpoint represented by intellectuals from "the common rooms of the academy, the better gentlemen's clubs of London, Amsterdam, New York, and Tokyo, the smoke-filled bars still visited by the remnants of the left, the opinion columns of more traditional newspapers" who feel nostalgia for the old media order that gave priority to public service broadcasting, Tracey shares one thing with them-negligible impact of their perspective on current media changes.

Impressive in scope, well-researched, informative, lucid, clear, and comprehensible (which, unfortunately, does not hold for many a critic whose work is more dense and obscure than what they seek to explicate), The Rise and Fall of Public Service Broadcasting offers an in-depth look at an era whose eclipse we are witnessing. Informed by the author's conviction that the idea in question is a positive social force, the study does, however, suffer from certain one-sidedness of argumentation. The amount of attention given to the alleged beneficiary effects of government-owned media significantly outweighs the opposing viewpoint. But that is only understandable in light of the predominant contemporary attitude to mass media, particularly in the U.S., one which highlights business control, privatization, feeling good, and immediate gratification. Regrettably, much as Michael Tracey may have a point lamenting the fall of public service broadcasting, his study is likely to become merely a historical account of a short era in media policy, which is even more clear now (in face of the recent problems of PBS, among other factors) than when the book was published and first reviewed by me in 1998 for a European journal.
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ITV is a public service network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority (ITA) to provide competition to the BBC. ITV is the oldest commercial television network in the UK. Since 1990 and the Broadcasting Act 1990, its legal name has been Channel 3, the number 3 having no real meaning other than to distinguish it from BBC One, BBC Two and Channel 4 - prior to this, the network had no legal overall name. In part, 3 was assigned as televisions would usually be tuned so that the regional ITV station would be on the third button, the other stations being allocated to that of the number their name contained. ITV is to be distinguished from ITV plc, the company that resulted from the merger of Granada plc and Carlton Communications in 2004 and which is the parent of ITV Broadcasting Limited to whom all of the Channel 3 broadcasting licences in England, Wales, the Scottish/English Border and the Isle of Man were transferred in November 2008. ... Read more

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Public service broadcasting has had a significant influence on how broadcasting developed both in Europe and throughout the world. The collection of articles in this special issue of Trends in Communication aims to provide an overview of the contemporary condition of public service broadcasting on a comparative level. They include contributions from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK, as well as an overview of how public broadcasters are regulated in Western Europe and an assessment of whether the current framework needs overhauling in a multichannel environment. The articles all demonstrate a great deal of continuity with the past together with an impression that even though there are great opportunities and challenges for public broadcasters in the changing world of the audiovisual industry, the fundamental principles and activities of these broadcasters persist.
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Publisher: St. Catharines, Ont. : Brock University, Dept. of Political SciencePublication date: 2001Subjects: Public broadcastingLiberalismNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more