EU Members Oppose Detailed Plan for Funding Public Service Broadcasters
EU plans to overhaul rules on government financing of public service broadcasters could violate national sovereignty, the European Broadcasting Union said Wednesday. The European Commission approach ignores the wishes of a large number of member countries by significantly altering the 2001 Broadcasting Communication, the EBU said. Commercial broadcasters, however, said the draft merely modernizes existing rules.
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EU countries may design their own public service broadcasting systems as long as they exercise some restraint when using public money to support them, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said earlier this year. But dramatic changes in media markets since 2001 mean public and commercial broadcasters are expanding to new distribution platforms, she said. That’s prompting newspaper publishers and commercial broadcasters to question the limits of using national government aid to pay for public broadcasters’ Internet activities, she said.
Before the draft text appeared, both sides said the EC appeared to be on the right track (CD Oct 1 p5). However, in a Sept. 24 letter to Kroes, 19 governments said existing rules need only “small changes” to adapt to technical developments of the digital age. Among other things, they insisted member countries be allowed to define, organize and fund their own public service media, and said harmonizing details of their regimes across Europe won’t work. The public service mission can’t be limited to services unavailable in the market, and must be allowed to include all electronic content, they said.
The EC may require nations to show how public service broadcasters meet the democratic, cultural and social needs of their respective societies, but can’t set the criteria for determining the public character of an activity, governments said. The communication may “invite” countries to consult on their public service missions but shouldn’t force them, as the draft does, to require independent market impact assessments before approving any new activities of public service media, they said. Public broadcasters shouldn’t be barred from offering pay services as part of their public duty if it’s necessary to ensure funding in the digital media landscape, they said.
The communication fails to take governmental opinion into account, an EBU spokesman told us. Moreover, it’s so detailed that it looks like a regulation and risks interfering with sovereign rights to determine the mission and financing of public broadcasting, he said. Allowing the market to decide the parameters of public broadcasting is dangerous because markets are not always “inspired,” the spokesman said.
The communication was written to address concerns that state aid to public service broadcasting could disrupt the advertising market and doesn’t take account of new technological developments, said Association for Commercial Television in Europe Director General Ross Biggam. The EC simply wants to modernize it, he said in an interview. The proposal is “a little shy” of the proper conclusions in some areas, but the EC has identified the right questions, he said.
One press report said the association believes public broadcasters are engaged in fearmongering. But the EBU spokesman said this isn’t the first time the EC has tried to interfere with national jurisdiction in this area.
EC guidelines drafted more than 10 years ago would have prevented public broadcasters from offering any programs already provided by commercial broadcasters, the spokesman said. “Furious” governments objected, prompting the EC to draft the current communication, which resolved more than 20 complaints, he said. “We're not crying wolf,” the spokesman said. The new text poses real danger and states take it seriously, he said.
Asked if commercial broadcasters will suffer fallout from the economic downturn, Biggam said companies will cut back as advertising budgets come under pressure, and he predicted a difficult year ahead. European broadcasters believe their fundamental financing models are sound, but the situation will force them to look beyond regular advertising for revenue, he said. Whether it’s product placement, digital advertising or secondary channels, “diversification is the buzzword,” Biggam said.
Commercial broadcasters will showcase their diverse initiatives at a Thursday press briefing in Brussels, Biggam said. Too many people view TV as just a main channel, but companies are turning to IP, mobile and catch-up TV as well as other technologies, he said. Consumers aren’t just looking at one screen in the living room anymore, he said.