Competition with Commercial Stations, Media Concentration Said Hurting PSBs

The 25 EU states are home to about 4,000 channels, and TV remains Europeans’ dominant source of information despite new technologies, OSI said. In most countries, broadcasting is a dual system of public and commercial TV. Most nations have laws ensuring a degree of independence of broadcasting regulators, but political and commercial pressures on those regulators “remain a fact of life,” OSI said.

PSBs enjoy a “special esteem” in a Europe concerned with democracy and European culture, OSI said. However, digitalization and convergence, plus pressure from commercial broadcasters, are blurring the distinction between PSBs and commercial TV in terms of program quality and content. The European Commission (EC) has upped the pressure by demanding more transparency in PSB financing and PSBs’ privileged position has drawn fire from the World Trade Organization and others. Across Western and Eastern Europe, PSBs increasingly are being reprimanded for having ties to govt. and for dumbing down programming as they try to keep up with commercial stations.

And TV markets are highly concentrated in terms of ownership and viewership, OSI said. The EC has left media ownership regulation to member states, but even existing laws such as the TV Without Frontiers directive often are hesitantly or inadequately adopted into national law.

“If one consistent message emerges from across these reports -- and it is one that bears out the warnings of many industry insiders and commentators -- it is that public services broadcasting stands on the brink of far- reaching change,” OSI said: “The momentum of technological change, the ripples of which are reaching even the least developed broadcasting sectors examined in this report, is unstoppable.” Commercial broadcasters are likely to benefit from these changes, while PSBs risk losing most, if not all, of the traditional justification for their privileges.

PSB in Europe’s new democracies “gives special cause for concern and its future is far from secure,” OSI said. Politicians in transition states show little inclination to respect PSBs’ autonomy, and there’s widespread professional and public indifference to PSBs’ role.

The report’s 41 suggestions on media law and policy, broadcasting regulators, PSB and commercial broadcasting target national govts., the EU, the Council of Europe (CoE) and the Organization for Cooperation & Security in Europe (OSCE). Internationally, the report asked the EU, CoE and OSCE to keep fostering public/private broadcasting, monitor media legislation and policies and spur public debate on digitalization’s social, political and cultural effects. It called on those bodies to ensure broadcast regulators remain independent and have the resources and authority needed to monitor broadcaster compliance with laws and license rules.

The EU and others should continue to protect PSB, OSI said. The EC and the OSCE should write laws ensuring the transparency of ownership in the broadcasting sector, the report said, and the EU should create an independent agency to monitor media markets and concentration worldwide.

National govts. and regulators should impose public service obligations on commercial broadcasters or encourage them to show public interest content, OSI said. Parliaments should bar media conglomerates that create digital chains such as digital multiplex operators, TV stations, program packagers and software providers. PSBs automatically should receive digital broadcasting licenses.

The OSCE “needs some time” to study the proposals, said Roland Bless, advisor to the OSCE Representative on Freedom of Media. That office monitors participating nations to encourage adherence to OSCE principles on the media and on freedom of expression. The CoE and the EC didn’t respond to questions seeking comment.

Ofcom Mandate Said Contradictory

The report analyzed broadcasting in 20 nations. The U.K., whose TV broadcasting “has been indelibly shaped by the principle” of PSB, seems to be moving toward the Continental dual system, OSI said. A U.K. proposal to relax public service obligations on commercial stations suggests the Office of Communications (Ofcom) is eyeing “radical changes” that could hurt the quality and range of public service programming, OSI said.

Ofcom’s mandate is contradictory, the report said. It must encourage TV industry competition while maintaining PSB quality. Ofcom doesn’t see its role as contradictory but “it seems likely that the public service obligations, which have traditionally been placed on commercial terrestrial broadcasters by the state will be traded off for improved economic and financial performance by these companies,” putting more pressure on PSBs, OSI said.

Ofcom’s citizen/consumer terminology suggests “that 2 concepts of society sand the individual which are sometimes diametrically opposed enjoy equal status in its policy approach -- an outlook that clearly relegates the normative notion of citizenship and promotes the consumer,” OSI said.

Commercial issues don’t take precedence over citizen interests, an Ofcom spokesman told us: “They're complementary.” The regulator is required legally to further citizens’ interests, he said. Ofcom must intervene where there’s a specific statutory requirement to work toward a public goal markets can’t achieve and to ensure a wide range of TV services of high quality and wide appeal.

Promotion of citizen issues is reflected in Ofcom’s board structure and advisory committees, the spokesman told us. The Content Board, a subsidiary of the main board, makes key recommendations on “citizen” issues such as media literacy, PSB and representation of U.K. regions Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales. The regulator also has advisory committees for older and disabled people and links with external groups such as the Central Religious Advisory Committee, he said.

OSI works to shape policy on democratic governance and human rights. Its report covered TV in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey and the U.K.

Public broadcasters now contribute fewer drama programs than private TV, the European Audiovisual Observatory (EAO) said separately Tues. Production of first-run “Eurofiction” domestic dramas on the unencrypted channels of France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the U.K. rose slightly in 2004 over 2003, indicating a drop or even a substantial reversal of earlier shrinkage in local fiction programming. Italy, the U.K. and Germany are the only countries where PSBs have upped programming of home- grown fiction. Elsewhere, the balance has shifted slightly toward commercial channels, OSI said.