Understanding the Role of Public Broadcasting

An Introduction to Marie Luise Kiefer and her Ideas about the Public Sector Media By Sebastian A. Baciu (22.09.2011) Over the last several decades there has been a dramatic surge in the number of private broadcasters across Europe. This deluge of private programming has the left the public sector media considerably shaken. Since the widespread introduction of broadcast media in Europe, services operated with public funds were accustomed to a local monopoly and a guaranteed majority market share. However, the introduction of a dual-market system1 has considerably weakened the position of public media across much of the continent, even though privatization has developed far more slowly in Europe compared to the US. Austria, for example, only introduced its first nationwide private television station (called ATV) in 2003. But the on-going debate about programme quality makes it obvious that the dynamic between public and private broadcasters will largely determine the nature of media markets in the years to come. With the onset of digitalization and the emergence of new distribution technologies such as IPTV, the stage has been set for the continued introduction of new private broadcasters and the pressure on public media will mount accordingly. To avoid succumbing to these new hardships, public broadcasters must adapt their long-term strategies to account for these developments. But in order to do this, they must first understand how their role in the media landscape has changed. The greatest difference between public and private sector media is that the latter is market-oriented. Private broadcasters are owned and managed by people primarily interested in earning a profit from their investment. On the other hand, public service broadcasting began as a response to the technical deficiencies of early broadcasting technology. In the first decades of broadcast media, the shortage of suitable frequencies in the radio wave spectrum made it impossible operate the same number of channels we are accustomed to today. In light of this limitation, the concept of broadcasting in the public interest established itself as a method of serving the broad interests of a countrys population fairly and equally. Public service broadcasting was developed as way ensure there was at least some degree of variety within the available programming. As a result, certain core principles were established which public broadcasters were expected to abide by so as to maintain broad relevance. For the BBC, the premier public broadcasting institution, these fundamental values were circumscribed by their governing mantra to inform, educate and entertain. This credo was conceived in the 1920s and remains central to the mandate of public television and radio - and not just in Britain, but throughout Europe. In Germany and Austria for example, the undisputed core tasks of the public media are Information, Bildung und Unterhaltung. Further, many European public broadcasters also have these tenets anchored at the legislative level and are consequently bound to them by law. In the German-speaking countries, this is known as the ffentlich-rechtliches Auftrag whereas the BBC refers to its own legal mandate2 as the Royal Charter. When the radio and television markets in Europe began to open up, private entrepreneurs seized the segments of the market they considered most lucrative. In an essay about the role of public broadcasters bearing the title Unverzichtbar oder berflssig: ffentlich-rechtliches Rundfunk in der Multimediawelt3, Marie Luise Kiefer4 refers to this strategy of the private networks as Rosinenpicken that is, the cherry-picking of the most profitable sectors of the market. While at first this may appear to be a reasonable and sound economic strategy, there are certain drawbacks when one takes into consideration the public functions the
In this case, a dual-market system refers to the side-by-side operation of both public and private sector media within the same marketplace. An ffentlich-Rechtliches Auftrag can be most appropriately translated as a legal mandate in the public interest. 3 The title can be roughly translated as Indispensable or Superfluous? Public Broadcasters in the Multimedia World 4 Marie Luise Kiefer is a German public intellectual and renowned media economist. Although not particularly well known in the English speaking world, Ms Kiefers ideas about public service media are applicable to broadcasters regardless of where they operate.
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media is typically expected to perform. While it is certainly true that the mere availability of private networks does not directly affect public broadcasters, they create a net effect on the market at large which can (and indeed must) influence programming decisions. The reason behind this is that public broadcasters are typically expected to maintain a minimum degree of rapport with the public at large. However, they are also designed by function to be fundamentally and visibly different from their private sector counterparts. In certain cases, this is even mandated by law and further affirmed by the judicature. The Austrian public broadcaster ORF, for example, is required by law to ensure that it is clearly distinguishable from private alternatives in both content and appearance. But because the most profitable segments of the market are also the most popular after all, media economics can be largely reduced to the economics of attention it often falls to the public broadcasters to pick up the slack in market segments which private sector companies are usually reluctant to service. In the legal material concerning public broadcasters, mention is often made of a concept referred to in German as Grundversorgung. To put it simply, this describes the responsibility of public media to cater to their countrys population in its entirety. But in her essay, Ms Kiefer argues that universal service may under no circumstances be interpreted as minimum service. In other words, public broadcasters must not focus solely on the most poorly supplied sectors of the market. Instead, they must move beyond this merely compensatory role in the market and compete for the same target audiences being sought by the private sector. Another important characteristic of the economic dichotomy of modern broadcast media markets is that public and private media enterprises operate within largely different normative horizons. All private sector companies must, by definition, mould their products to meet the markets expectations. They are profit-driven, and their products are designed entirely to meet this end. For their part, public service media are expected to fulfil their legal mandate and the degree to which they do this may be considered the primary determinant of their success. However, while a quick glance at a companys balance sheet might be enough to ascertain whether it is achieving profitability, it is substantially more difficult to evaluate the degree of compliance with a legal mandate. For evidence of this, one needs to look no further than the terms typically used in legal documents when elaborating on the duties of public broadcasters. For example, the Austrian ORF is required by its mandate to carry demanding or upmarket entertainment (anspruchsvolle Unterhaltung) without any further qualifying statements on precisely what this genre of entertainment might actually consist of. As organisations governed by a legal mandate, public service broadcasters must necessarily satisfy a more extensive set of demands than their profit-driven counterparts. It was previously mentioned that the dominant currency in media economics is attention. Therefore, the most profitable programmes are those which are the most popular especially if the programme is favoured amongst 12 49 age group most coveted by advertisers. Consequently, it seems likely that the private sector will be primarily motivated to broadcast programmes which are relatively cheap to produce and have a great deal of mass appeal quality. Such programs will yield the fattest margins and therefore be the most profitable. However, it is equally clear that the public sector media are also obligated to provide at least some amount of mass appeal programming so as to avoid alienating large portions of their audience. Whereas an unpopular show might result in a dip in profits for private companies, sustained unpopularity could mean a loss of legitimacy for public broadcasters. But while private sector broadcasters are free to focus exclusively on popular programming, the public sector media must focus on popularity in addition to whatever else might be prescribed by their mandate. However, public broadcasters do have one essential freedom in this regard, and that is thatg they are not financially dependent on viewership. As a result, they can afford to forgo certain popular programmes in favour of something that might appeal to smaller and less lucrative segments of the public. In her aforementioned essay, Ms Kiefer writes that public broadcasters have the liberty to interpret a viewers decision to leave the TV switched off on any particular day as a sign of

maturity. On the other hand, private broadcasters must regard any such decision as an existential threat and will likely react to it with aggressive marketing and promotion of their products. (Kiefer [Langenbucher (Hg.)] 2000, P. 157) The concept of public value is an oft repeated byword in discussions concerning the societal importance of public service broadcasting. Public value was first developed by Mark Moore as a conceptual antipode to the more recognizable idea of shareholder value. It is based on the premise that when a company or organization reaches a certain size, internal and external interests are likely to collide. Further, the implicit dichotomy also suggests that both sets of values are likely to be contradictory. In other words, what might create value for a companys owners is not necessarily guaranteed to correspond with the interests of other stakeholders, such as the public at large. In this case, the term stakeholder essentially describes all (non-owning) persons or groups whose immediate material or immaterial existence could be affected by a given organisations decisions or behaviour. While the term public value has been adapted somewhat to fit the debate about public broadcasting, the essential dichotomy between owners and stakeholders is still clearly present. Unfortunately, the term public value is so imprecise that it may be defined in a practically infinite number of ways. In fact, it seems far easier to define what public value isnt rather than exactly what it is. It has been suggested that any programme designed exclusively to generate profits through mass appeal is not befitting of consideration as a public value product. However, this meagre attempt at definition through contrast falls short in many ways. And in fact, many private broadcasters claim that actually, the exact opposite is true. They insist that a programmes popular appeal should be considered the essential determinant of its public value, and they certainly have a point. Their arguments have even received backing from the scientific community. Heribert Schatz and Winfried Schulz, in their attempt to develop a set of criteria by which the quality of television content may be judged, identify five major dimensions of programme quality. In no particular order, these are 1) Diversity, 2) Relevance, 3) Professionalism, 4) Acceptance and 5) Legal Conformity. In this case, acceptance refers to the desires and demands of the audience a classification of quality which is often side-lined or bypassed entirely in academic debates. As difficult as it is to define public broadcasting as a concept, it is even more difficult to determine which type of programming is most likely to create public value. First and foremost, it is important to note that public value is created and that it is not an inherent attribute of television content per se. When a television or radio programme is in harmony with the audiences values, it can then be claimed to have public value. However, one flaw in this definition is that it is highly individualistic. Another is that, because the range of possible human values is virtually infinite, almost any programme is capable of creating publicvalue in this sense. Taking this into consideration, it should be obvious why it becomes controversial when certain countries (such as Austria) decide to provide substantial government subsidies for private broadcasters who elect to broadcast public value programmes. Without any universal grounds by which to objectively determine public value, it at times appears arbitrary why certain programmes are considered worthy of receiving subsidies while others are not. For public broadcast media on the other hand, the situation is much simpler. Because their legal mandate generally requires them to cater to every possible taste, there exists at least a possibility that public value might be generated across a wider range of demographics. The private sector generally prefers a particular group of viewers young, high income, well educated and will try to create programming which most closely fits this particular groups expectations. Therefore, even if private broadcasters attempt to create public value content, they will likely do so exclusively for their particular target audience. As a result, the economically less lucrative market segments are left chronically undersupplied. It therefore seems fit to ask whether this type of targeted public value by private broadcasters may be considered public value at all. Not too many years ago, certain media theorists considered the integrative potential behind television to be its most important and valuable characteristic. With this in mind, it seems correct to suggest that true public value

programmes should strive to serve broader societal goals. Television and radio especially are best reserved for programmes which seek to unite viewers in a manner that stretches beyond their immediate proprietary value system. This is further confirmed by the concept that the media act as a kind of social glue which serves to bind together an otherwise divergent society. By providing common themes and topics for people to talk about so called Anschlusskommunikation5 the mass media help stretch a common thread across the plurality of human experience. Despite the difficulty of defining public value as a concept, the term is actually vital to the existence of public broadcasters in general. The dominance of the neo-liberal economic ideal is likely to rise, which means that the privatization of the public sector will continue if not accelerate. Although the recent economic crises of the last few years might have tempered the blind faith some have in the market, providing for the security of private interests still often seems to rank ahead of the public good. However, it has been recognized that private companies are ill-equipped to supply certain parts of the market. Considered from an economic perspective, the market for media products is problematic because consumers are only able to evaluate their true quality after purchase, if at all. However, an ideal market allows consumers to demand goods based on their evaluation of quality before purchase. As a result, the good quality products will succeed while the inferior ones will suffer from a lack of demand and be forced from the market. But because media products are so-called experience goods which can only be evaluated post-purchase, this fundamental market principle fails. As per accepted economic theory, the market for such experience goods often degenerates into a quality spiral downward. Because there is little incentive to improve quality, producers compete to make the cheapest goods rather than the best goods. (Kiefer [Langenbucher (Hg.)] 2000, P. 165) Ms Kiefer cites the explosion in the amount of low-cost programmes that have come on-air since the establishment of the dual market as potential evidence in support of this hypothesis. The competition to produce cheap programmes is also a simultaneous trend toward homogeneity. Because low-cost programmes are largely similar, the result is likely to be a net loss in programme diversity as the number of private broadcasters continues to rise. In other words, there is a subtle but decisive difference between mere variety and real diversity; a quantitative increase does not necessarily guarantee an expansion of qualitative choice. Ms Kiefer argues that public service media have an important role to play in this regard. Because they are legally mandated to provide quality programming irrespective of the potential costs, public broadcasters must play both a compensatory and a corrective role in the market. (Kiefer [Langenbucher (Hg.)] 2000, P. 165) The compensatory role consists of broadcasting programmes that would otherwise remain neglected by market-oriented providers, either because they are too expensive to produce or because their target group might be too small or economically marginal, such as with minorities and the elderly. Following Ms Kiefer, it would seem that this compensatory function is the commonly accepted raison dtre for public service broadcasters amongst lawmakers and media intellectuals. In the course of fulfilling their mandate to provide quality content, the public service media must also act as a counterweight to private broadcasters by directly competing with them in their preferred markets. This gives consumers a real choice between qualitatively different programmes and they are free to react to a perceived loss (or lack) of quality by preferring one broadcaster over another. In fact, the mere availability of alternative programmes creates competition and thereby forces the private sector to maintain a minimum level of quality, which in turn helps to inhibit the downward quality-spiral. (Kiefer [Langenbucher (Hg.)] 2000, P. 165) Put succinctly, the public service media have a particular responsibility to provide high-quality mass appeal entertainment programmes which actively target the same audiences sought by the private sector. Because they are not required to prove themselves on the
The word Anschlusskommunikation is often used in the German literature to refer to the communication one has with others about mass media content such as articles, TV shows and the like.
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market in terms of generating profit, public broadcasters are in fact uniquely qualified to occupy this particular role. (Kiefer [Langenbucher (Hg.)] 2000, P. 166) Finally, it seems necessary that we address an issue which has repeatedly punctuated the debate surrounding public service media ever since the markets became accessible to private broadcasters: the proposed contradiction between entertainment and information programmes. It has long been assumed that both types of programmes are fundamental opposites and therefore mutually exclusive. Only recently has it been recognized that this dualism is actually unjustified and that there may exist a substantial degree of overlap between the genres. From the audiences perspective, informational programmes may be entertaining just as entertainment programmes may also be educational. In a paper exploring the relationship between these two assumed opposites, Elisabeth Klaus points out how these supposedly different genres might be related. She mentions the work of British media researcher Dorothy Hobson who first highlighted the potential for fictional soap operas to closely involve viewers with social issues in manner which would be otherwise impossible for traditional non-fiction formats such as news reports or documentaries. (Klaus [Neverla, Grittmann, Pater (Hg.)] 2002, P. 631) Because viewers of soap operas usually relate closely to the characters, their problems and individual situations have increased relevance. In other words, fictional programmes are able to manipulate emotions in manner that helps overcome the default apathy many feel toward problems which do not directly concern them. On a purely relational level, it seems that the intensity of sympathy or empathy felt by a viewer is actually directly modulated by the program format. As reflective interpretations of the real world, non-fiction programmes are actually more likely to distance viewers than to involve them. Because news is typically served as compartmentalized doses of reality, viewers often feel as if they are glimpsing through a portal into a strange and foreign world. And while they might recognize the plight of the people being portrayed, this rarely leads to understanding or compassion because the relationship remains formal and quite frigid. (Klaus [Neverla, Grittmann, Pater] 2002, P. 637) Some viewers even reach the point where the consumption of news becomes a caustic ritual largely devoid of any real meaning or significance. Furthermore, the compartmentalized format news is regularly presented in does little to encourage long-term association with the issues. Typical news programmes are usually little more than a long series of disconnected events which are paraded in front of the viewers accompanied by sparse commentary and little context. After watching such a program, viewers are more likely to feel overpowered and overwhelmed than anything else. Fictional programs can compensate for many of the deficits inherent in traditional news reporting because they encourage viewers to maintain a close, long-term relationship with the events on the screen. At most, viewers are able to recognize the aesthetic differences between both genres but are likely to remain impervious regarding what significance this might actually have in terms of programme effect. According to Ms Klaus, most viewers see the opposite of entertainment as monotony and tedium, while the opposite of information is actually disinformation or even misinformation. Citing the numerous intellectuals who like go on vacation with their preferred quality newspapers as an example, Ms Klaus points out the consumption of news can very well become an entertaining pastime for some. (Klaus [Neverla, Grittmann, Pater (Hg.)] 2002, P. 632f) Conversely, Ms Klaus also mentions a study conducted in the United States which claims that topoi and conflict categories specific to literature are often employed in traditional news reporting. It seems fit to conclude that a separation between these two categories is largely meaningless especially when seen from the recipients point of view. As for the public broadcast media, they are best advised to focus on programme quality rather than on the information-entertainment dichotomy. As mentioned in our appraisal of the public value dilemma, it is largely the viewer who attributes certain qualities to particular programmes. Continuing in the same vein, it is therefore not permissible to argue that a programme has public value just because it is

entertaining or informative. Instead, the merit of individual programmes must be considered on the basis of the extent to which they comply with other, less obtuse provisos. Literature KIEFER, Marie Luise: Univerzichtbar oder berflssig? ffentlich-rechtlicher Rundfunk in der Multimediawelt (Pp. 153 172) in LANGENBUCHER, Wolfgang R. (Hg.): Elektronische Medien, Gesellschaft und Demokratie. Wilhelm Braumller, Wien. 2000 KLAUS, Elisabeth: Der Gegensatz von Information ist Desinformation, der Gegensatz von Unterhaltung ist Langweile in NEVERLA, Irene, GRITTMANN, Elke & PRATER, Monika (Hg.): Grundlagentexte zur Journalistik. UTB Verlag, Stuttgart. 2002