Dr Monika Metykova
Department of Media
Northumbria University
Newcastle, UK
Email:monika.metykova@northumbria.ac.uk
Regulating Public Service Broadcasting in Europe

Media/Cultural Industries
l Industrial production and circulation of texts (not restricted to written texts)
l David Hesmondhalgh: The Cultural Industries:
l Core cultural industries: broadcasting; film industries; content aspects of the Internet
industry; music industries; print and electronic publishing; video and computer games; advertising
and marketing
l These interact/interconnect with each other in complex ways, mainly because they compete for the
same resources: disposable consumer income; advertising revenue; consumption time; creative and
technical labour

Media economics
Media/cultural products have special characteristics:
l Hybrid/mixed in terms of markets, product and technology (operate in a dual market, selling a
product to consumers and a service/audience to advertisers; diversified products and technologies
and organizational means for distribution)
l High labour intensiveness and high fixed costs (although changing with new technologies and media
expansion)
l High degree of uncertainty (in terms of consumer evaluation – still difficult to predict audience
tastes) and uniqueness of the product
l Despite standardization media products can rarely be repeatedly sold in the same form
l Media especially prone to concentration
l Many media business are hard to enter without large capital resources
l Media are affected by the public interest

Why media matter?
l Make and circulate texts that influence our understanding of the world (the effect is complex)
l Manage and circulate creativity (are ‘symbol creators’ different? Geniuses? Responding to a
higher calling? Or is it similar to other kinds of labour?)
l Agents of economic, social and cultural change (and the contents/texts are a good indicator of
this)
ALSO
l Activities of media are economic and political (political function of media in a democracy +
information and ideas cannot acceptably be monopolized by private individuals – a public good)
l As well as dependent on changing technologies of distribution
l Alternatively: internal – media professional – point of view

Media regulation - justifications
l Feintuck, M. (1999). Media Regulation: Public Interest and the Law. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press.
Regulation is justified on the grounds of:
l enabling effective communication. This notion is closely related to the freedom of speech ideal,
as reflected, for example, in the First Amendment to the US Constitution or in Article 10 of the
“European Convention on Human Rights”
l diversity which Feintuck relates specifically to political debate and cultural identities
l economic interest - benefits of undistorted competitive markets
l public interest - broadcasting in the public interest should guarantee universally accessible
quality service (defined differently in the different national systems of public service
broadcasting), diversity as well as national political and/or cultural interest.

Concerns over media concentration
l Curran, J. (May 2002). "Global Media Concentration: Shifting the Argument."
http://www.opendemocracy.com
l The first is that private concentration of symbolic power potentially distorts the democratic
process. ... The second reason for concern is that the power potentially at the disposal of media
moguls tends to be exerted in a one-sided way. ... The third reason for concern is that the
concentration of market power can stifle competition. ... To this can be added perhaps a fourth
concern. The dominant position that emerged in this debate – that media concentration undoubtedly
exists but matters relatively little – fairly accurately reflects the balance of opinion, both in
the relevant academic literature and in wider political debate. This is giving rise to a one-sided
protection of our freedoms: a state of constant alert against the abuse of state power over the
media, reflected in the development of numerous safeguards, not matched by an equivalent vigilance
and set of safeguards directed against the abuse of shareholder power over the media. In this
respect he provides the example of the British national press, pointing out that due to the long
control of the market by an oligopoly no new independent national newspaper has been launched in
the past seventy years.

Media regulation - techniques
Feintuck – 3 types: structural, behavioural and content regulation
l In shorthand, “content regulation” refers to limitations being imposed on what cannot or must be
broadcast or published, while “structural regulation” refers to limits on the extent of that which
can be owned within any market by any one corporate entity, and, in effect, “behavioural
regulation” generally serves to limit how property held can be used in relation to its impact on
actual or potential competitors.

Media regulation – trends
l 1990s liberalization and deregulation (minimalist regulatory intervention by governments) in
North America and Europe
l Some consequences of the trend – McChesney, R. (2003). "Theses on Media Deregulation." Media,
Culture and Society, 25(1):
l US 1996 Telecommunications Act had most impact on US radio; it changed the restriction on the
ownership of radio stations (prior to the 1996 Act a single company could own 28 stations
nationally and 4 in a single community) by completely removing the restriction on the number of
national radio stations owned by a single firm and increasing the number of those owned in
a community to 8. “Since 1996 well over half of US stations have been sold, and a stunning
consolidation has hit the industry. One firm, Clear Channel, now owns nearly 1,200 stations. Every
market is dominated by two to three firms that own nearly all the stations between them”
(McChesney, 2003: 129). What McChesney finds worrying about this concentration of radio ownership
is the decrease in the diversity of radio content as well as in the diversity of voices presented
on the radio as well as increased commercialization.

A Snippet of History
lGuglielmo Marconi Italian inventor sent and received his first radio signal in Italy in 1895. 1901
received the letter "S" telegraphed from England to Newfoundland; first successful transatlantic
radiotelegraph message.
lNikola Tesla and Nathan Stufflefield took out patents for wireless radio transmitters. Tesla is
now credited with being the first person to patent radio technology; the US Supreme Court
overturned Marconi's patent in 1943 in favour of Tesla.
lIn 1922 British Broadcasting Corporation Ltd. was founded
l5 March 1926: Parliamentary Crawford Committee published its broadcasting report; termination of
the British Broadcasting Company, Ltd. and creation of a Crown-chartered, non-commercial British
Broadcasting Corporation from 1927; funded by a licence fee (compulsory radio licence until 1971),
broadcasting characterized as public good.

Principles of Public Service Broadcasting
l universal accessibility (geographic)
l universal appeal (general tastes and interests)
l particular attention to minorities
l contribution to a sense of national identity and community
l distance from vested interests
l direct funding and universality of payment
l competition in good programming rather than for numbers and
l guidelines that liberate rather than restrict programme makers.

Media and the Public Interest
lTelecommunication services - part of businesses that are considered to be “affected with a public
interest” due to:
1. the essential nature of the service
2. its tendency to monopoly and
3. the requirement of universal accessibility.
lDifficulties with applying the term public interest to an area like communication due to
misunderstandings according to which features of mass communication are essential and whether
interferences with free market mechanisms are justified in order to secure these.

Systems of Public Service Media
1. Social devolutionary
2. Liberal corporativist
3. Public service

Public Service Broadcasting and EU Membership
The “Protocol [No. 32] on the system of public broadcasting in the Member States” was in 1997
annexed to the “Treaty on European Union” (“Treaty of Amsterdam”)
The provisions of the Treaty establishing the European Community shall be without prejudice to the
competence of Member States to provide for the funding of public service broadcasting insofar as
such funding is granted to broadcasting organisations for the fulfilment of the public service
remit as conferred, defined and organised by each Member State, and insofar as such funding does
not affect trading conditions and competition in the Community to an extent which would be contrary
to the common interest, while the realisation of the remit of that public service shall be taken
into account.

Public Service Broadcasting and Competition Policy
“the Protocol certainly did not remove public service broadcasting from the application of the
state aid rules. ... Arguably it [the Protocol] reduces the Commission’s margin of discretion to
the extent that only funding which clearly is not connected to the public service mission is
illegal under the state aid rules” (Nitsche, 2001: 152-153)

Technological Developments and Regulation
“Report from the High Level Group on Audiovisual Policy” of October 1998
Deregulation:“there is a case to be made for the relaxation of unnecessarily restrictive
regulations, especially as terrestrial free-to-air services will have to remain competitive with
a host of new services emerging as a consequence of higher capacity on all networks”.  Deregulation
is understood as a means of increasing competitiveness, the deregulatory framework should “abide by
certain principles and in particular it should encourage competition, pluralism and open,
non-discriminatory access. It may take account of other, more specific, public policy goals,
primarily set at national level”.

The Example of the Czech Television
483/1991 Sb.
ZÁKON
České národní rady
ze dne 7. listopadu 1991
o České televizi
ve znění zákonů č. 36/1993 Sb., č. 253/1994 Sb., č. 301/1995 Sb., č. 39/2001 Sb., č.
231/2001 Sb., č. 82/2005 Sb., č. 127/2005 Sb., č. 304/2007 Sb., č. 384/2008 Sb., č.
132/2010 Sb. a č. 153/2010 Sb.




























BBC Digital Curriculum
Subject: State aid No N 37/2003 – United Kingdom BBC Digital Curriculum
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE SCHEME
(4) On 9 January 2003, the Secretary of State approved the BBC’s proposals for the Digital
Curriculum, a new online service that would provide interactive learning materials free to homes
and schools. The approval would allow the BBC to spend £150 million from the license fee funds on
the Digital Curriculum over a period of five years from the date of approval of the scheme by the
Commission.
(5) The Digital Curriculum will provide an extensive online service, accessed via the internet. The
proposed service is aimed for use in schools and homes. The Digital Curriculum service will be
accessible through the BBC’s existing BBCi online site and the Curriculum Online portal (see
paragraph 9 below); in both cases free to all users. The service will be accessible by all with a
PC and internet connection, or other suitable receiving devices. The Digital Curriculum is
primarily intended to be a broadband service, but at the same time one where
the majority of materials will nevertheless be accessible via narrowband connections. A broad range
of media would be used in providing the Digital Curriculum and it will involve a mix of interactive
learning resources.




2009 Communication on State Aid
 Communication from the Commission on the application of State aid rules to public service
broadcasting
(Text with EEA relevance)
(2009/C 257/01)