In the United Kingdom, the term 'public service broadcasting' refers to broadcasting intended for public benefit rather than to serve purely commercial interests. The communications regulator Ofcom requires that certain television and radio broadcasters fulfil certain requirements as part of their license to broadcast. All of the BBC's television and radio stations have a public service remit, including those that broadcast digitally.
'We've seen reports in the last few days of even cabinet ministers' passwords being for sale online,' he told broadcasters. 'We know that our public services are attacked so it's not at all surprising that there should be an attempt to hack into parliamentary emails.' (Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Ros Russell and Angus MacSwan). Public service broadcasters were losing some of their distinctiveness.10 It also found that viewers were more likely to distinguish between good and bad programmes rather than public service and non-public service broadcasting.11 A rapidly changing landscape and the threats to public service television.
History[edit]
The BBC, whose broadcasting in the UK is funded by a licence fee and does not sell advertising time, is most notable for being the first public service broadcaster in the UK. Its first director general, Lord Reith introduced many of the concepts that would later define public service broadcasting in the UK when he adopted the mission to 'inform, educate and entertain'.
With the launch of the first commercial broadcaster ITV in 1955, the government required that the local franchises fulfilled a similar obligation, mandating a certain level of local news coverage, arts and religious programming, in return for the right to broadcast.
The next commercial television broadcasters in the UK, the state-owned Channel 4 and S4C, were set up by the government in 1981 to provide different forms of public broadcasting. Channel 4 was required to be a public service alternative to the BBC and to cater for minorities and arts. S4C was to be a mainly Welsh language programmer. Neither was required to be commercially successful as Channel 4 was subsidised by the ITV network and S4C received a grant from the central government. However, Channel 4 was later restructured under the Broadcasting Act 1990 to be a state owned corporation that is self-financing and from 2013 the BBC took over funding for S4C.
When the final analogue terrestrial broadcaster, Channel 5, was launched in 1997 it too was given a number of public service requirements. These included the obligation to provide minimum amounts of programming from various genres, minimum amounts of programming originally commissioned by the channel and of European origin, and maximum limits on the number of repeats.
Future viability[edit]
![Lords launch report into online threat to public service broadcasters 2017 Lords launch report into online threat to public service broadcasters 2017](/uploads/1/2/5/0/125026208/800803069.jpg)
The advent of digital age has brought about many questions about the future of public service broadcasting in the UK. The BBC has been criticised by some for being expansionist and exceeding its public service remit by providing content that could be provided by commercial broadcasters. They argue that the BBC can distort the market, making it difficult for commercial providers to operate. A notable example of this is the Internet services provided by the BBC.[1]
However, those who defend the BBC suggest that the BBC needs to provide new services and entertainment, to remain relevant in the digital age.[2]Furthermore, there are also questions about the public service commitments of the commercial broadcasters. All commercial channels that broadcast solely on digital platforms do not have public service requirements imposed. After digital switchover many of these channels will have the same coverage as the analogue commercial broadcasters. This has raised the question of how the analogue commercial broadcasters, with their costly public service obligations, will compete on a level playing field with such digital channels.
ITV has been attempting to significantly reduce its obligations to produce and broadcast unprofitable public service programming, citing the increased competition from digital and multichannel television. Similarly, Channel 4 has projected a £100m funding gap if it is to continue with public service broadcasting after digital switch-over. As a result, Ofcom has recently been consulting on what direction public service broadcasting should take in the future.[3]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Brook, Stephen (18 May 2006). 'Media groups unite against BBC'. The Guardian. Retrieved 31 August 2006.
- ^Tryhorn, Chris (14 March 2006). 'Entertainment 'vital' to BBC's future, says white paper'. The Guardian. Retrieved 31 August 2006.
- ^– The Ofcom Review of Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) Television Archived 19 December 2005 at the Wayback Machine
Further reading[edit]
- From Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service Communications, ed. Damian Tambini and Jamie Cowling (London: Institute for Public Policy Research; 2004). ISBN1860302297. Essays on the future of British public service broadcasting in digital media.
External links[edit]
- British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) – Official site
- The BBC and the future of Public Service Broadcasting (archived from the original on 23 Jun 2009).
- Channel 4 Television – Official site
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Public_service_broadcasting_in_the_United_Kingdom&oldid=860829324'
Before they started at secondary school two years ago, my older children regularly read the sports pages over breakfast or cuddled up to watch The X Factor on a Saturday night. Nowadays, they constantly scroll through Instagram and YouTube on phones that appear to have been grafted on to their fingers. The biggest threat to public service television is there, live and kicking, in my front room.
Where do they get their news from? Or learn about the world? Surely not just from videos of how to paint nails in ever weirder ways, or from vlogs on how to beat their mates at imaginary football games?
Their ability to make and share video content or communicate with their friends and the world beyond is infinitely greater than mine ever was. But just how good, for want of a better word, is that content? Does it make them better citizens as opposed to just bigger consumers with a lot more choice?
It’s hard to be sure. Research on the behaviour of the i-generation born after 2000 is relatively limited. We know that their slightly older peers watch far less television than their parents did. Among 16-24 year olds, viewing of live TV news dropped by 29% between 2008 and 2014.
Public service television isn’t all about news, of course. Ofcom has a marvellously rounded definition of the term as “high-quality content, made for as wide a range of audiences as possible, and for public benefit rather than purely commercial ends”. It adds “diversity” and “plurality” and the need to “reflect and examine society as a whole”. Lord Reith boiled it down to “inform, educate and entertain”.
The entire debate probably sounds as Victorian to my children as my own grandmother’s description of pounds, shillings and pence did to me. Teenagers may well scoff at the idea of public service broadcasting (PSB), a vague thing that encompasses children’s content as well as religious broadcasting, arts and culture. Isn’t most of that for old people anyway? But what about national sporting events? Or homegrown drama about British lives, wherever they are?
Analysts at Ofcom, which published its public service broadcasting review in June, think it possible that once this generation reach 35, possibly with children of their own or at least less money or desire to go out every night, they could start watching more public service content on a range of platforms. But this appears less than scientifically based.
It seems clear that Ofcom’s overall view that “public service broadcasting is in good shape” with a relatively robust advertising market in television is only true for the next decade at most.
Some will argue that parental concerns about technology are akin to previous generations worrying about boy bands. Yet, decisions being made over the next 18 months – about the future of the BBC and Channel 4 but also the purpose of public service broadcasting – could help create a very different environment whether we like it or not.
The government is looking at the BBC, as is the House of Lords. Yet Labour peer and filmmaker Lord Puttnam is right to launch a broader inquiry into the nature, purpose and role of public service television today and I’m glad to be a member of the advisory committee. There are huge, broad questions to be asked and now seems as good a time as any to ask them.
The first may be why we still need public service broadcasting, or whether it should continue to come from the main public service channels which currently dominate. With investment in new, UK-originated content by these channels down by over £400m in real terms between 2008 and 2014, according to Ofcom, this might be a moot point anyway.
Education, arts and religion saw the biggest real-term declines, though the smallest overall totals. Yet in those areas, other providers have stepped in: Sky Arts in cultural provision, for example, or, in the field of formal education training, the teacher network run by the Guardian where professionals share resources.
But what about the impact of commercial competition in televised sport?
As many fans have argued, including my colleague Barney Ronay, the battle to broadcast Premier League football has ended up with consumers spending the same and getting less sport for their money.
And for those who argue that choice and competition will provide, it seems wise to point to the financial services industry. That didn’t work terribly well either, did it?
There are obvious hazards ahead, but the more questions we ask now, the better.