Public Broadcasting - Defining Public Broadcasting

Defining Public Broadcasting

The primary mission of public broadcasting that of public service, speaking to and engaging as a citizen. The British model has been widely accepted as a universal definition. The model embodies the following principles:

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

While application of certain principles may be straightforward, as in the case of accessibility, some of the principles may be poorly defined or difficult to implement. In the context of a shifting national identity, the role of public broadcasting may be unclear. Likewise, the subjective nature of good programming may raise the question of individual or public taste.

Within public broadcasting there are two different views regarding commercial activity. One is that public broadcasting is incompatible with commercial objectives. The other is that public broadcasting can and should compete in the marketplace with commercial broadcasters. This dichotomy is highlighted by the public service aspects of traditional commercial broadcasters.

Read more about this topic:  Public Broadcasting

Famous quotes containing the words defining, public and/or broadcasting:

    Art, if one employs this term in the broad sense that includes poetry within its realm, is an art of creation laden with ideals, located at the very core of the life of a people, defining the spiritual and moral shape of that life.
    Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)

    The public is a hibernating bear, hard to awaken and fond of honey.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    We spend all day broadcasting on the radio and TV telling people back home what’s happening here. And we learn what’s happening here by spending all day monitoring the radio and TV broadcasts from back home.
    —P.J. (Patrick Jake)