The Blurred Distinction between Public Service Broadcasting and Commercial Broadcasting
Introduction
Broadcasting in the UK can be traced from the establishment of the British Broadcasting Company in 1922. The first general manager of the BBC was John Reith. It all started as a business enterprise but not a public body. It was after a tough commercial bargaining that BBC came into existence. There was competition between wireless interests and the Post Office. After a series of discussions, the outcome was establishing two broadcasting companies instead of one. The BBC had to struggle hard against more powerful established media interests specifically the press, which was then the peak of its public power. The Press would dismiss BBC’s claims by branding it as an ordinary commercial enterprise to bring out the point that the people at the back of it are not philanthropists but mere business people (Briggs, 1961). The essay that follows presents an argument which supports the assertion that the distinction between Public Service Broadcasting and Commercial Broadcasting is blurred.
From a ruling by Post Office, BBC’s dividends were limited to 7.5 percent. Through the leadership of Reith, BBC started acting as a public service (Steemers, 2005). In its first four years since inception, it did not make any profits out of broadcasting beyond 7.5 percent return on capital. In 1927, the BBC transformed from a company to a corporation with Reith as the main advocate of this change. Broadcasting stopped being a toy, an amusing novel, an affair for the risk-takers to being an institution. People’s ways of thinking and feeling were affected as well as their relations with each other. A series of changes have occurred since then as the appetite for entertainment had been growing, the machinery used to duplicate the printed page, the phonograph record and lastly the motion-picture film contributed to quantity production in the broadcasting field (Webb, 2002).
The BBC embraced these techniques but was not in agreement with the values for it had its own values (Peacock, 1986). Reith and his team believed that diffusing knowledge is just as active as a force in a democratic society as the demand for superior entertainment. To them, wireless network was a public good and not a means to handle people. They were supported by people who drew a contrast between the raising broadcasters’ work and the degrading work of other agencies of mass transmission like the cinema. The so-called mass media interacts with each other and have certain features in common. Broadcasting began to pass from novelty to the phase of acceptance between 1922 and 1926. People stopped wondering and considered it as more fruitful as an instrument of social well-being (Wegg, 2001).
The media centers of huge amounts of economic and social power not only in the USA but also all over the world. It is the single largest sector of the US export economy; with radio and TV giving multibillion dollars per year. The media has seen hundred thousands of people employed in the entertainment sector of the US economy (Banerjee, 2006). The political processes have continually been influenced by the power of the media. The audience is also powerful in broadcasting as everyday it picks programs, messages and meanings available. Their knowledge, experience and values help them understand the media. TV in the 1950 focused on the white middle class family and this was a reflection of how the American society was then (Boddy, 1993). For example, “father knows best” (CBS/NBC 1954-1962), “leave it to Beaver” (CBS/ABC 1957-1963), “make room for daddy” (CBS/ABC 1953-1964) and so much more.
Broadcasting in the US is a nationalist project, which defines the nation, defends nation’s interests and creates a sense of national heritage and history. Private, commercial corporations through the sale of advertising time fund it. Today, you must be a US citizen to own a broadcasting station. The deregulatory telecommunications Act of 1996 was one of the strongest argument used by the media industry that only through these concessions, the US industry would remain powerful worldwide thus resisting takeover by powerful foreign companies. The invention of the Radio in the US marked the start of broadcasting (Hilmes, 2011).
Public service broadcasting took several decades to find its place alongside commercial media and media under the control of the state. It plays a key role in giving citizens information; educate them, and entertainment that is free of commercial, state or political influence. Public service broadcasting enables every citizen to be a stakeholder in society, participate fully in the life of the community where they belong and actively involved in its organization. It aims at serving all for the common good while preserving independence with long-term financial resources guaranteed. With the rapid spread of digital communication and technologies in the 1990;there has been a blend of broadcasting, telecommunications and computer to revolutionize the way we receive and consume broadcasting services today. The speed at which these services are received has increased and it has become cheaper to receive a variety of channels. The new broadcasting environment is marked by a set of parallel development including the disintegration of the state broadcasting model and the move towards democratization in the various parts of the world; the introduction of mixed broadcasting systems in the countries where public service dominated. The increase in channel capacity and the disappearance of audio-visual borders is another development.
Public service broadcasting in the US is well understood by examining three approaches. The first approach is the public service approach where the government provides funds for public broadcasting. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting Service (CPB) provides funds for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Radio International (PRI), which provides a niche TV, and radio broadcasting services. The commercial approach utilizes advertising to collect funds and make profits. The third approach is the public sphere in which listeners and volunteers offer the bulk of the funding. The Pacifica Radio Foundation is the best example of public service broadcasting in the USA.
PBS was established in 1969 in Washington, D.C. its aim was to connect all the public TV stations in the US to create a new national network (Jowell, 2001). Today, 349 stations make up the PBS. Its mission is to inform, inspire and educate. It is guided by three principles: building trust- definite projects, diverse perspectives and integrity in journalistic strengths; developing opportunities to connect- differentiated and distinctive programming, remain relevant to audience and encourage participation. The third principle is to provide opportunities for audience participation- innovative proposals or programs, smart programmers, relevant and definitive. Although PBS is funded by CPB, most of the operating budget comes from private sources with the TV audience as the largest source of funding. During pledge drives, staff, local supporters and celebrities ask for money on the air. Through special programs, the audience is inspired to contribute funds. Underwriters also provide grants for programs or products for fund-raising auctions. Ford, General Motors, Kellogg’s, Mobil Oil company, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals are the major corporations that contribute to PBS (Thompson, 2006).
In Britain, the public service broadcasting is governed by a set of principles (BBC, 2007). Geographical universality is the first principle where these broadcast programs should be available to the whole population. Just as postal service delivers a mail to even the remotest homes, so should the broadcaster consider it their duty to provide programs to whomever that wishes to receive them. There should be universality of payment where the broadcaster should directly be funded by the corpus of users, which comprises the license fee, a tax-payable by every owner of a television set. This ensures that services are of good quality. The structure of broadcasting should be based on good programming competition other than for numbers. Broadcasters should not compete for the same source of revenue. In Britain, the license fee and the commercial independent television (ITV) fund the BBC and Local radio (ILR) companies by advertising thus broadcasters compete for audiences in terms of the quality of the programming outputs.
Universality of appeal is another principle whereby broadcasters have a duty to meet the needs, interests and tastes of all. Public service broadcasting does not support the fact that only the mass audience should be reached and production of educational and cultural fare to the minority audience. Programs should be availed to the audience as a whole thus exploring and extending the possibilities of the medium; new ideas and talent are stimulated. The minorities should receive particular provisions from the media. The minorities include the very old, very young, the poor, those of a different culture or from a racial origin. Channel four TV in Britain, through the commercial system part, is charged with such a responsibility to meet the minority groups.
Broadcasters should recognize their relationship with the national identity and community. A forum where all citizens find an expression of national concerns and communal interests should be provided. Broadcasters should keep a distance from all stakes from the government of the day. Establishment of the BBC as a public corporation under the Royal Charter is both symbolic and practical to ensure broadcasting is independent (Fowler, 2009), (Horrie, 2000). Strict rules to keep responsibility for programs in advertising are observed in the commercial sector. The public guidelines for broadcasting should give freedom to broadcasters instead of restricting the program makers. They should feel free and highly innovative. However, regulations are needed to ensure that advertising channels do not neglect commercially unprofitable programming. These regulations should be fair, permissive rather than restrictive.
The emergence of the network-dominated, advertising-supported, loosely regulated broadcasting system in the United States can be dated between 1920 and 1935. Commercial broadcasting was the only conceivable choice to a democratic society. The public had a lot of influence on the formation of a policy, which led to the passage of the Radio Act of 1927 and afterwards the Communication Act of 1934. In the network era, TV was a domestic, non-portable medium that brought the outside world into the home (McCarthy, 2001). There was a limitation in terms of the programs offered to viewers where only four national networks delivered content on a daily schedule only at appointed times in routinized daily sequence of programs. This left the viewer with very little to do (Spigel, 2004).
Commercial broadcasting is a private entity that majors in business through advertisements. It can be done either on radio or on the television. The private corporate media own commercial radio broadcasting. It is totally based on airing advertisements for profits. Commercial broadcasting in the USA is quite dominant. The major commercial broadcasters include the ABC, CBS, Fox, and the NBC TV networks. Broadcasting for an hour, sets 10 to 20 minutes for advertising. Those who want to advertise pay a certain amount of money for their commercials based on a program of rating or audience measurement of a station. Commercial advertising is therefore more accountable to advertisers.
In Britain, commercial advertising is a set of TV programming that is produced and paid for by an organization. This program conveys a message to market a product or service. These messages consist of a brief advertising spots, ranging in length from a few seconds to minutes. The ITV was the first commercial broadcasting TV advert in 1955 that advertised toothpaste (ITV, 2004). Commercial broadcasting in UK involves two major tasks with first task being creating a TV advert which meets broadcast standards and placing the advert on a TV through a targeted air time media thus reaching the desired consumer.
.Conclusion
There are positives and negatives to both public service broadcasting and commercial broadcasting. The TV audience today wants to be entertained (Bourdieu, 1993). They do not prefer watching educational programs or documentaries. Celebrities and reality TV shows catch most of their attention. If the TV channels and radio stations broadcast educational programs and documentaries only, their viewers will lose interest and eventually go out of business (Corner, 1999). It is therefore my opinion that the viewers of media control the content to be produced and if the producers want money, they have to please their viewers. Commercial broadcasting is more popular today than public service broadcasting but it has some negative aspects (Steemers, 2005).
Commercial broadcasting shows so many controversial aspects of life like sex, alcohol and drugs. This makes the society to be unfairly represented and so bad if young children are exposed to it. Public service broadcasting is informational and highlights the positive aspects of society. Although the public service broadcasting content is highly educational, media procedures should broadcast programs that are more commercial in order to stay in business. The PSB is a public entity that falls in the hands of the public but the management has freedom to operate. The commercial broadcasting is a private ownership that is regulated by the state. PSB programs are driven by public interest where the main audience is the citizens while in commercial broadcasting; commercial interests with the consumers drive programming as the audience.
The main sources of funds for public service broadcasting (PSB) is subscription fees, from viewers, state funding and small amount of advertising while the consumer broadcasting get its funds from the advertisements because these are the private investments. The media in any country may include a variety of broadcasters including PSB, commercial, community, or state broadcasting. It is not in order to assume that these types are mutually exclusive. Public service obligations may be placed on commercial broadcasters and most countries prefer a mixed broadcasting system. Economic factors, social, political and cultural factors determine the mix of the broadcasts.
More participatory forms of politics and broadcasting should be established if people want to play an active part in public life and decision-making. This will enable them to exercise greater control over their own individual and social life. Many more radio stations and more regional TV networks are required to strengthen rather than vitiate the diversity of identities of place. The public should access and participate in program making as a key feature of decentralized radio and TV services. Having discussed in depth about the public service broadcasting and commercial broadcasting; it is evident that both aim at reaching people with information. However, as seen from the differences, it is clearly seen that their goals are quite different. Therefore, nowadays the distinction between the public service broadcasting and commercial broadcasting is blurred or unclear.
References
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