Commercial vs PBS

Defining Public Broadcasting

The essence of public broadcasting is that its purposes are different from commercial broadcasters. Commercial broadcasters exist to make profits and satisfy their shareholders. Public broadcasters are owned by the State and required by law or by charter to serve public ends and to operate in the public interest.

Ofcom, the British regulator charged with examining the nature of public service broadcasting and its future in the UK, has produced a useful diagrammatic representation of the core components of public service broadcasting (PSB) as follows:

The key dimensions of public broadcasting can be summed up as deriving from these quadrants.

• Range and balance

A public broadcaster will be required to present a full range of programmes across all genres and sub-genres, going beyond the more limited range of programmes that appeal to advertisers. Public broadcasting aims to satisfy the needs of different communities and diverse audiences within the total population.

• Diversity

The BBC seeks to provide something for everyone. It also aims to provide a full range of diverse viewpoints, which is a significant element of its democratic role (see below). Diversity may also apply to ensuring that programmes are produced from a variety of sources.

• Social and cultural balance

It will be the responsibility of the public broadcaster to promote a nation’s identity and culture, and to reflect the nation back to itself. This will involve a high proportion of locally made programming, taken for granted in countries like the UK, but an important issue in a country like New Zealand, which is vulnerable to cheap English language programmes made for global markets. The public broadcaster is expected to deliver on the mantra of our people, our stories. A secondary point is that funding for public broadcasting can help to sustain the local production industry.

• Democratic

Participation in an effective democracy requires an informed and interested population. This in turn requires a free flow of information about events and institutions and access to public discussion embracing the analysis and meaning of daily developments. Any public broadcaster is expected to provide a quality service of news, current affairs, documentary and factual programming, to meet the democratic needs of its audience.

Some political theorists, such as Graeme Murdock, go further. Murdock makes two important points. The first is that citizens have established rights, in respect of their relationship with the media, as follows: 

• Rights to information
• Rights to experience
• Rights to knowledge
• Rights to participation

Somewhat idealistically, Murdock has also identified four promises of public broadcasting, which he sees as central to the development of a democratic culture.

• A potential space for free expression and open debate, provided for by public service broadcasting's relative and continually threatened distance from private capital and government influence
• Accessibility for everyone to this space of expression and debate, without additional charge for services
• An arena in which the politics of difference can be negotiated and a provisional notion of the common good arrived at, because public service broadcasting includes a range of experiences, perspectives and arguments within a single stream of mixed programming
• Audiences are addressed by public service broadcasting as citizens, not as consumers (Murdock, 1997)

This forum for public debate, this arena for the negotiation of public differences, is similar to the concept of public space put forward by Habermas or the later articulation of the civic commons. It is the political dimension of the notion of shared experience, which television, in particular, can provide for major events, or national triumphs or disasters.

How far public broadcasters deliver in practice on the concept of public space is arguable. BBC programmes like Newsnight or Question Time are in the mould, but attract small or declining audiences. In New Zealand, the Holmes programme on TV One aspired to the ideal, but it was unashamedly populist in tone. Although it gained significant audience, it was not nationally representative as most were 40years+. In many countries, election debates and discussion programmes would be seen as fulfilling the concept of the public space, although again, audiences are small and skewed towards the older demographics.

• Universality

Given that the purposes and benefits of public broadcasting are for the general good of society, it follows that public broadcasting must be made universally available, and free at the point of use. The cultural and democratic purposes cannot adequately be met if some groups are effectively excluded from the benefits of public broadcasting.

What is most important, the institution of public broadcasting or the content of public broadcasting? Most public broadcasting, as defined above, will be delivered by institutional public broadcasters, in fulfilment of their Charters or legislative remits. Such institutions have always been of fundamental importance in the delivery of public broadcasting.

But the kernel of public broadcasting – the content, in the form of distinctive programming fulfilling the purposes outlined above – does not have to be delivered by a publicly-owned or publicly-funded broadcaster. The commissioning and delivery of programmes serving public purposes can be organised in other ways.

The NZ On Air model of a contestable fund for public broadcasting programmes available to all broadcasters with national coverage is one example. Singapore has been operating a similar system for some years. Even in the UK, dominated by the presence of the BBC, all the commercial broadcasters are regarded as falling within the system of public broadcasting, by virtue of the responsibilities imposed on them through their licences.

As the transition to digital advances, one of the key questions is whether the new environment will require a greater emphasis on content-focused systems to supplement or even replace the old structure of public broadcasting through institutions. The proposal in the UK for a Public Service Publisher (PSP) is a response to this question.

Content Providers

The role for content providers in the new digital world of IPTV, datacasting and mobile media is similar to the current roles in traditional broadcasting. However, production houses, network production departments and film studios will be joined by a plethora of individual and small group content creators all putting their work ‘out there’ for access. Given multiple platforms, content providers will be constantly re-purposing and re-versioning existing content for different consumption as well as creating new product.

Content Aggregation

The role of content aggregators will be an enhanced version of the current role played by television networks - purchasing content from content providers but without the end role of actual broadcast delivery. Content aggregators will be fashioned on a range of criteria including geographic, demographic and psychographic. They may also specialise in specific content ranges. They will seek to sell their content through various distribution channels.

Content Distribution

Most content will be delivered to consumers based on what they pay for (subscription), but distribution channels could be owned and operated by entities distinct from aggregators. For example, audio and video material provided for mobile phones may come from broadcast content aggregators, but be distributed by the telecommunications company that owns the mobile network. IPTV distribution may also be controlled by a telco, whereas digital terrestrial signals may come from multiplexes owned by a transmission company and not a broadcaster (in New Zealand Kordia may provide the digital terrestrial transmission for all free to air networks and a range of subscription based datacasting).