Stacked Deck

Michael Hedges March 9, 2009

Competition between public and private sector broadcasters plays on the airwaves everyday. More and more it’s played on new media platforms. Out of listeners and viewers attention the high stakes game threatens the very reason it was created.

The European Parliament’s Culture Committee held a brief hearing (March 5) on the European Commission’s proposed revision of the Broadcasting Communication. The Culture Committee is gatekeeper on media issues before any vote by the Parliament. Six experts were invited to speak, five supporting public sector broadcasting. Several representatives of private sector media – publishers, radio and online media – had requested time to present contrasting points of view but it wasn’t in the cards.

The Broadcasting Communication began as DG Competition’s rules on State aid to public broadcasting. It was adopted in 2001. Considering the long process for European legislative rule making its genesis was very last century. All stakeholders agreed, more or less, a re-evaluation for the digital century was necessary. Agreement – between the public and private media sectors, at least – abruptly ended. 

A bit more than a year ago EC Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes held a public consultation on the Broadcasting Communication and six months later decided to go forward with a revision. Commissioner Kroes has investigated more than two dozen complaints and violations of EC State aid rules by public broadcasters. Several States – from Austria and Ireland to Germany and the Netherlands – reached settlements with the Commission and brought national rules on public broadcasting into compliance.

Last November Commissioner Kroes offered a draft of the Broadcasting Communication to “help stakeholders in the broadcasting sector to meet the challenges of the new media environment, allowing a high quality and modern public service, while at the same time maintaining a fair level playing field between the different actors.”

On recommending a revision of the Broadcasting Communication, DG Competition noted that

“public broadcasters receive more than 22 billion Euro annually from license fees or direct government aid, placing them third, after agriculture and transport companies, among recipients of State aid.”

The draft revision offered private sector media a glimmer of hope that a defining – and limiting – mandate for public sector broadcasting could be settled. Specifically, the private media stakeholders looked for restraints on public sector media, tax financed, entering the emerging new media platforms. Public sector broadcasters were not amused.

“If this extremely detailed version of the Broadcasting Communication were adopted,” said European Broadcasting Union (EBU) Director General Jean Réveillon (November 8, 2008), “it could seriously reduce the scope for Member States to grant public service broadcasters a significant role in the information society.”

Public sector broadcasters have lobbied their own governments and Members of the European Parliament with the argument that each State should determine the mandate of public broadcasting rather than the European Commission. This has resonated among Member States weary of Commission rules that interfere with political fiefdoms. Many view private sector media as far too independent and unresponsive to the particular needs of politicians. Public broadcasters, incumbents of State broadcasting, are, as they come hat in hand to politicians for money, far more responsive.

The Culture Committee hearing was introduced as a forum for finding both balance between the “public good” of private and public sector interests as well as freeing public broadcasting from the perils of the marketplace, all in the interest of ‘quality’ television.

The first expert, University of Barcelona journalism professor Pere-Oriol Costa, said no ‘quality’ programming could be found outside of public television and commercial operators lacked social responsibility. Further defending public broadcasting, he said, “The point is not how many people watch or don't watch public TV. The point is to guarantee the supply of quality programmes to the public. We should not look at audience figures, but at principles.”

Next, French media regulator Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel (CSA) Director General Olivier  Japiot defended the plan of French President Nicolas Sarkozy to separate public broadcasting from advertising as a means to “distinguish itself from private competitors and free itself from the constraints of audience-shares.”

Representatives of public broadcasters repeated their main talking point: issues of public broadcasting funding and mandate should be left to national governments.

EC Commissioner for the Information Society and Media Viviane Reding gave informal comments at the Culture Committee hearing, stressing that the Broadcasting Communication should reflect a clear balance between competition law and media policy. EC Competition Commissioner Kroes did not attend the hearing.

As the only representative of private sector media invited to speak it was left to Association of Commercial Television in Europe (ACT) General Director Ross Biggam to “call on the EU institutions to take our concerns into account.” Biggam reiterated two points included in the current draft of the Broadcasting Communication that horrify public broadcasters: independence of regulators and “clear separation between public broadcasters’ public and commercial activities.”

“European consumers, and thus European tax payers, have the right to enjoy a broadcasting landscape,” he said, “which clearly distinguishes between public and commercial broadcasting.”

Several points made are non-argumentative. The time has come for public broadcasters to separate themselves from commercial advertising. Many public broadcasters agree; advertising distorts perspective, at the very least. No longer is there a public policy need to support the advertising sector. But advertising is a narcotic, particularly for smaller public broadcasters spending disproportionately more than their larger public sector counterparts for ‘quality’ programming.

And too, public broadcasters – fuzzy mandate notwithstanding – should join the new media revolution. If public broadcasters are expected to perform a public service, they must have the means. This should not, however, be extended to dating websites.

More questionable is the contention by public broadcasting supporters that they and they alone produce or disseminate ‘quality’. It’s patently inaccurate. More worrying as a matter of media policy is the question of whether or not the State should determine ‘quality’.

Europe’s dual public-private broadcasting system yields immeasurable benefits to listeners and viewers. Choices are wide, varied and expanding daily. Listeners and viewers have shown their agility in finding and using the media, public or private sector, they want and need. The current draft of the Broadcasting Communication offers a small step in protecting a delicate balance. Stacking the deck in favor of political influence over public interest risks, without independent regulation, returning to the State broadcasting of the last century.