In The Digital Age There Is No Zero-sum Game

Michael Hedges July 13, 2015 Follow on Twitter

From the earliest days of broadcasting listeners - and later viewers - in many countries contributed to transmitter and program costs through a tax levy on receiving equipment. Over time public broadcasting emerged in Europe and elsewhere from state operated systems. The household license fee formed, in part, the financial basis for independence from political and commercial influence. Several public broadcasters were able to leverage brand strength from this independence. Neither politicians nor competitors have been pleased.

The BBC, the UK public broadcaster, will embark on this bold experiment and ask users of their services for freewill contributions. “We will give those eligible households an opportunity to voluntarily pay for a TV licence and so make a contribution to the cost of the BBC’s services,” said BBC policy director James Heath, quoted by the Guardian (July 10). If the idea catches on - risky to be sure - the very shape of European public broadcasting could enter a new phase less reliant on the household license fee.

Those eligible are UK residents over age 75 whose license fee has been paid since 2001 through a government contribution to senior citizen’s benefits. The current UK government recently announced a string of benefits’ cuts to offset reduced tax bills for bankers. Ending license fee subsidy for the elderly will be phased in from 2018 and represent about 18% of the BBC’s license fee funding, GB£650 million annually (€900 million). Additionally, the UK government intends to remove the threat of legal consequences for non-payment of the license fee at an estimated annual cost of GB£200 million (€278 million).

Delivering fiscal pain to he UK’s dominant media brand has long been an agenda item for conservative politicians intent on shrinking the BBC, an effort near and dear to commercial competitors. “You wouldn’t want the BBC to completely crowd out national newspapers,” explained Chancellor of the Exchequer and Second Lord of the Treasury George Osborne on BBC One (July 5). “If you look at the BBC website it is a good product but it is becoming a bit more imperial in its ambitions.” Punishing the BBC for unflattering news coverage and other perceived sins has long obsessed successive UK governments, never more than the current with gleeful cheering from fellow travellers among certain newspaper proprietors.

Not all followed the chimes from the Times and Sun, owned by the Murdoch family, the Telegraph, owned by Channel Island residents the Barclay Brothers and the Daily Mail, principally controlled by the Harmsworth family. “Mr. Osborne’s television license wheeze is crude and compromises the BBC’s independence,” wrote the Financial Times (July 6). Still, the current UK government seems determined to shrink the BBC’s presence. A Culture Ministry green paper to be published this week, reported the Sunday Times (July 12), will outline measures from scaling back the BBC’s online offering with possible subscription models and cutting broadcast output to “more public service programs” to offloading profit-making sindication/production arm BBC Worldwide.

Other European public broadcasters have faced much of the same in recent years, right-wing governments seeking favorable relations with private sector media barons. Well-pocketed and well-connected German newspaper publishers railing about the online and mobile output of public broadcasters have won a few political victories only to see defeat in the courts. German public broadcasting, taken as a whole, is far bigger in terms of both output and revenues than the BBC and benefits from high levels of public trust as well as historical skepticism toward political interference in media sectors.

While no serious attempts at reducing funding or scope of public broadcasters have gained public traction in Scandinavia, Austria, Switzerland, Poland and the Czech Republic politicians in the Netherlands, Portugal and Hungary have succeeded in - or attempted - squeezing their national public broadcasters. When the Greek government two years ago effectively closed public broadcaster ERT, widely reported as more a gift to private media owners and less about austerity policies, a rallying point was created that proved to be the government’s undoing. Politicians ignore the public’s attachment to public broadcasters at their peril.

It is, however, clear that public broadcasting as defined in the last century’s simpler times is due for an overhaul. The risk of irrelevance in the world of Netflix and Spotify looms large as people use media in new ways and easily find what they want however they want it. Public broadcasting, more than private sector competitors, owns the mark of national solidarity. It is worth considering when politicians, broadly, trumpet their ambitions.

See also in ftm Knowledge

The BBC

Few pure media brands transcend borders and boundries to acheive the iconic status of the BBC. The institution has come to define public service broadcasting. Yet missteps, errors and judgment questions fuel critics. The BBC battles those critics and competitors and, sometimes, itself. 155 pages PDF (August 2015)

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Public Broadcasting - Arguments, Battles and Changes

Public broadcasters have - mostly - thrown off the musty stain of State broadcasting. And audiences for public channels are growing. But arguments and battles with politicians, publishers and commercial broadcasters threatens more changes. The ftm Knowledge file examines all sides. 168 pages PDF (March 2014)

Order here