Public service broadcasting is based on the principles of universality of service, diversity of programming, provision for minority audiences including the disadvantaged, sustaining an informed electorate, and cultural and educational enrichment. The concept was conceived and fostered within an overarching ideal of cultural and intellectual enlightenment of society. The roots of public service broadcasting are generally traced to documents prepared in support of the establishment of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) by Royal Charter on 1 January 1927. This corporation grew out of recommendations of the Crawford Committee appointed by the British Postmaster General in August of 1925, Included in those recommendations was the creation of a public corporation which would serve as a trustee for the national interest in broadcasting. It was expected that as public trustee, the corporation would emphasize serious, educational, and cultural programming that would elevate the level of intellectual and aesthetic tastes of the audience. The conception of the BBC was that it would be insulated from both political and commercial influence. Therefore, the corporation was a creation of the crown rather than parliament, and funding to support the venture was determined to be derived from license fees on radio (and later television) receivers rather than advertising. Under the skillful leadership of the BBC's first director general, John Reith, this institution of public service broadcasting embarked on an ethical mission of high moral responsibility to utilize the electromagnetic spectrum--a scarce public resource--to enhance the quality of life of all British citizens.

Within the governance of national authorities, public service broadcasting was recreated across western European democracies and beyond in various forms. At the core of each was a commitment to operating radio and television services in the public good. The principal paradigm adopted to accomplish this mission was the establishment of a state-owned broadcasting system that either functioned as a monopoly or at least as the dominant broadcasting institution. Funding came in the form of license fees, taxes or similar noncommercial options. Examples of these organizations include the Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation, Danish Broadcasting Corporation, Radiodiffusion Television Francaise, Swedish Television Company, Radiotelevisione Italiana, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Australian Broadcasting Corporation. While the ideals on which these and other systems were based suggested services that were characterized by universality and diversity, there were notable violations to these ideals, especially in Germany, France and Italy. In some cases the state-owned broadcasting system became the political mouthpiece for whomever was in power. Such abuse of the broadcasting institutions' mandate made public service broadcasting the subject of frequent political debates.

Contemporary accounts of public service broadcasting worldwide often include the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio as American examples. However, unlike the British model which was adopted across Europe, the U.S. system came into being as an alternative to the commercially financed and market driven system which has dominated U.S. broadcasting from its inception. Whereas 1927 marked the beginning of public service broadcasting in Britain, the United States Radio Act of 1927 created the communication policy framework that enabled advertiser supported radio and television to flourish. Language contained within this act explicitly mandated broadcasting stations to operate "in the public interest, convenience or necessity," but the public service ideals of raising the educational and cultural standards of the citizenry were marginalized in favor of capitalistic incentives. When the Radio Act was replaced by the Communications Act of 1934, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recommended to Congress that "no fixed percentages of radio broadcast facilities be allocated by statute to particular types or kinds of non-profit radio programs or to persons identified with particular types or kinds of non-profit activities." It was not until 1945 that the FCC created a license for "noncommercial educational" radio stations. But even though these stations were envisioned to be America's answer to the ideals of public service broadcasting, the government's failure to provide any funding mechanism for noncommercial educational stations for nearly 20 years resulted in a weak and undernourished broadcasting service. Educational radio in the United States was referred to as the "hidden medium." Educational television was authorized by the FCC's Sixth Report and Order adopted 14 April 1952, but the creation of a mechanism for funding educational radio and television in the United States had to wait for passage of the Public Broadcasting Act on 7 November 1967. Funding levels never approached the recommendations set forth by the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television in its report, Pubic Television: A Program for Action, in which the term "public television" first appeared.

During the 1970s and 1980s public service broadcasting worldwide came under attack, as the underlying principles on which it was based were called into question. The arrival of new modes television delivery--cable television, satellites, video cassettes--had created new means of access to broadcast services and thus changed the public's perception about the importance and even legitimacy of a broadcasting service founded on the principle of spectrum scarcity. From an ideological perspective, questions were being raised about the very notion of a public culture by conservative critics, and charges that public service broadcasting was a closed, elitist, inbred, white male institution were put forward by liberal critics. Movement toward a global economy was having an ever increasing impact on the way policy-makers saw the products of radio and television. The free market viability of educational and cultural programming as successful commercial commodities seemed to support the arguments of critics that public service broadcasting was no longer justified. Deregulation of communication industries was a necessary prerequisite to the breakdown of international trade barriers, and the shift toward increased privatization brought new players into what had been a closed system. The growing appeal of economic directives derived from consumer preferences favored the substitution of the American market forces model for the long--standing public trustee model that had been the backbone of public service broadcasting. Adding to this appeal was the growing realization that program production and distribution costs would continue to mount within an economic climate of flat or decreasing public funding.

By the early 1990s, the groundswell of political and public dissatisfaction with the privileged position of public service broadcasting entities had reached major proportion. Studies were revealing bureaucratic bungling, cost overruns, and the misuse of funds. One commission after another was recommending at least the partial dismantling or reorganization of existing institutions. New measures of accountability demanded more than idealistic rhetoric, and telecommunication policy makers were turning a deaf ear to public service broadcasting advocates.

Communication scholars who had been reticent on these issues for the most part, began to mount an intellectual counterattack, based largely on the experiences of public broadcasting in the United States. Critiques of American communications policy underscored concerns about the evils of commercialization and the influence of the open marketplace. Studies pointed to the loss of minority voices, a steady decline in programs for segmented populations and a demystification of the illusion of unlimited program choices introduced by the new television delivery systems of 500 channel cable networks and direct broadcast satellites. Content analyses revealed program duplication, not diversity, and the question of just how far commercial broadcasters would venture away from the well-proven formulas and formats was getting public attention. A concerned electorate was beginning to ask whether the wide scale transformation of telecommunications was not without considerable risk; that turning over the electronic sources of culture, education, and political discourse to the ever-shifting forces of the commercial marketplace might have profound negative consequences.

By the mid-1990s telecommunications policy issues ranged from invasion of privacy, depictions of violence on television, the manufacturing of parent-controlled TV sets, revisions in technological standards to finding new funding alternatives to sustain public service broadcasting in some form. These issues were also firmly embedded in the public discourse. Communication corporations appeared and disappeared daily. The environment of electronic communications was in a state of flux as the new technologies vied for a piece of a quickly expanding and constantly evolving marketplace. Public service broadcasters were reassessing their missions and were building new alliances with book publishers, computer software manufacturers, and commercial production houses. In the United States, public radio and television stations were experimenting with enhanced underwriting messages that were looking and sounding more and more like conventional advertising. The relative success of these and other new ventures worldwide was still an unknown. Whether public service broadcasting will continue well into the 21st century remains a topic for robust debate.

-Robert K. Avery

FURTHER READING

Avery, R. K., editor. Public Service Broadcasting in a Multichannel Environment: The History and Survival of an Ideal. White Plains, New York: Longman, 1993.

Blumler, J G., and T.J. Nossiter, editors. Broadcasting Finance in Transition: A Comparative Handbook. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Burns, T. The BBC: Public Institution and Private World. London: Macmillan, 1979.

Carnegie Commission on Educational Television. Public Television: A Program for Action. New York: Bantam, 1967.

Carnegie Commission on the Future of Public Broadcasting. A Public Trust. New York: Bantam: 1979.

Day, J. The Vanishing Vision: The Inside Story of Public Television. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.

Emery, W. B. National and International Systems of Broadcasting: Their History, Operation, and Control. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1969.

Engelman, R. Public Radio and Television in America: A Political History. Newbury Park, California: Sage, 1996.

MsChesney, R. W. Telecommunications, Mass Media and Democracy: The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928-1933. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Raboy, M. Missed Opportunities: The Story of Canada's Broadcasting Policy. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990.

See also British Television; Public Television; Reith, John