The digital media environment is characterized by an abundance and diversity of content, a multiplicity of platforms, new modes of content production, distribution and access, and changed patterns of consumer and business behaviour. This has challenged the traditional model of public service broadcasting (PSB) in diverse ways. This book explores whether and how PSB should adapt to reflect the conditions of the digital media space so that it can effectively and efficiently continue to serve its public mandate. Drawing on literature on media governance in media and communication science, public international law as well as discussions on cyberlaw, Mira Burri maps and critically analyses existing policy and scholarly debates on PSB transformation. She challenges some of conventional rationales for reform, identifies new ones, as well as exposes the limitations placed upon existing and future policy solutions by global media governance arrangements, especially in the fields of trade, copyright and Internet governance. The book goes on to advance a future-oriented model of Public Service Media, which is capable of matching an environment of technological and of governance complexity. As a work that explores how public interest objectives can be pursued efficiently and sustainably in the digital media ecology, this book will be of great interest and use to students and researchers in media law, information technology law, and broadcast media studies, as well as to policy-makers.

A guide to the nature, purpose, and place of public service television within a multi-platform, multichannel ecology. Television is on the verge of both decline and rebirth. Vast technological change has brought about financial uncertainty as well as new creative possibilities for producers, distributors, and viewers. This volume from Goldsmiths Press examines not only the unexpected resilience of TV as cultural pastime and aesthetic practice but also the prospects for public service television in a digital, multichannel ecology. The proliferation of platforms from Amazon and Netflix to YouTube and the vlogosphere means intense competition for audiences traditionally dominated by legacy broadcasters. Public service broadcasters—whether the BBC, the German ARD, or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation—are particularly vulnerable to this volatility. Born in the more stable political and cultural conditions of the twentieth century, they face a range of pressures on their revenue, their remits, and indeed their very futures. This book reflects on the issues raised in Lord Puttnam's 2016 Public Service TV Inquiry Report, with contributions from leading broadcasters, academics, and regulators. With resonance for students, professionals, and consumers with a stake in British media, it serves both as historical record and as a look at the future of television in an on-demand age. Contributors include Tess Alps, Patrick Barwise, James Bennett, Georgie Born, Natasha Cox, Gunn Enli, Des Freedman, Vana Goblot, David Hendy, Jennifer Holt, Amanda D. Lotz, Sarita Malik, Matthew Powers, Lord Puttnam, Trine Syvertsen, Jon Thoday, Mark Thompson

Europe is marked by a great diversity in public service broadcasting culture which is a result of the different political, economic, cultural and social realities in different European countries. This publication examines the development of public service broadcasting, its current raison d'ãtre and its perspectives in the digital media era. It also addresses the demands and expectations placed on public service broadcasting: how are these demands expressed and how do today's broadcasters meet these demands? Fourteen European countries are covered in detail: Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom. The countries were chosen to provide an overview of the different regulatory models developed throughout Europe. Each contribution describes the foundations of the public service remit, the economic and financing model as well as the decision-making process. In addition, it examines the influence of a country's cultural, political or social aspects on the selection of the public service broadcasting system and its organisational structures.

This book investigates public service broadcasting (PSB) models in post-authoritarian regimes, and offers a critical inspection of the development of a Western European-originated PSB system in Asian transitional societies, in particular in Indonesia since the 1990's. Placing the case of Indonesia's PSB within the context of global media liberalization, this book traces the development of public service broadcasting in post-authoritarian societies, including the arrival of neoliberal policy and the growth of media oligarchs that favour free market media systems over public interest media systems. The book argues that Western European PSB models or 'BBC-like' models have travelled to new democracies, and that autocratic legacies embedded in former state-owned radio and television broadcasters have resisted pro-democratic media pressures. As such, similar to new PSBs in other post-colonial, transitional and global south regimes, such as in Arab states or Bangladesh, this book demonstrates that the adoption of PSB in Indonesia has not reflected the ideal PSB project initially envisaged by media advocates but was flawed in both media policy and governance. It explores the history of broadcast governance in authoritarian Indonesia, and considers how Western European PSB or 'British Broadcasting Corporation/BBC-like' models have travelled – somewhat uneasily – to new democracies, but also how autocratic legacies embedded in former state-owned radio and television channels have resisted external parties of pro-democratic media systems.

This book offers an analysis of public service broadcasting (PSB) in European Countries that highlights the issues – both legal and not – currently facing PSB. Focusing particularly on the link between public TV and the political class, Giorgia Pavani offers an overview of the structure and governance of PSB from both a comparative and international viewpoint. The text is a useful research tool for those who want to study PSB from a viewpoint that goes beyond the legal perspective, and helps the reader to further understand the phenomenon of influence on public TV policy. By combining new comparative approaches in the studies of PSB with a detailed and updated analysis of International, European and comparative law, the result is an innovative and multidisciplinary volume that seeks to unpick the relationship between PSB and politics.