Public Service and Commercial Broadcasting in British TV - Assignment Example

Public Service and Commercial broadcasting in British TV Introduction Public Service Broadcasting, specifically in Britain, has been under considerable scrutiny in the last few years. With the television industry required to turn digital and with increasing political interference, the role of PSB and its future has been under debate recently. While programmes such as Master Mind, Dr. Who and Blue Peter have been hallmarks of PSB, there are certain episodes such as the Hutton Case that have cast PSB under a negative light. In this paper, an attempt has been made to understand the role of PSB in Britain and the controversy that surrounds it. The aim of the paper is to suggest ideas for the future of PSB and commercial broadcasting in British TV. Public Service and Commercial Broadcasting in British TV British TV is unique in the sense that it is greatly dominated by public service broadcasting; a prime example of which is British Broadcasting Company (BBC). This corporation and others of its kind are funded by the government and the contents that they produce are thus controlled and scrutinized before being presented to the public (Scannell, n.d). In Britain, there are four principal broadcasters: BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Independent Television (ITV). BBC is the main provider of public service broadcasting and is funded by the government which uses a license fees from consumers to fund the operations of BBC (The House of Commons: Culture, Media and Sport Committee, 2010). All of these broadcasters are controlled by Ofcom, an organization responsible for controlling and monitoring communications in Britain. Ofcom has placed a mandate on all broadcasters to provide public service broadcasting in order to earn their right of broadcasting in Britain under the IBA Act for Independent Television and Royal Charter for the BBC (Negrine, 1994). Public service broadcasting in UK serves four main important purposes. These being: to provide knowledge relating to current events to the public; increase the scope of informal learning and its interest in different fields including science, arts and humanities; to bring into consideration the different perspectives to a story; and lastly to bring into focus the importance of diversity and unity on the national level (Ofcom, 2012). Public service broadcasting, in general, allowed the television industry to develop an innovative content that focused on the rich history of Britain and was intent on producing content that was relevant rather than commercially successful; even though most programmes were commercially successful and later adopted by television industries all over the world. An example of this was the television series Dr. Who. The Main Issue Recently the regulation imposed by Ofcom on television broadcasting has been brought under considerable scrutiny. Critics argue that the role of television and its mode of delivery are changing at a rapid change as technology is evolving continuously. This requires a change in regulations that must be considered seriously. One issue surrounding PSB in Britain is the content hat public service broadcasting and specifically BBC is producing. Since BBC has to fight with other commercial providers, it has turned towards adopting a style that is quite similar to that of its commercial peers. When such a condition occurs, there is a danger that the public and legislators may question the direction of their taxes to such an organization (McDonnell, 1991) Another problem that commercial broadcasters have brought forward is that providing public service broadcasting is imposing financial constraints on these companies. They have to compete with BBC that is funded extensively by the government while they have to rely on commercial revenues. These revenues are impeded because these providers are required to provide mandatory public service broadcasting service (House of Lords, 2009). Another issue is the change in broadcast media with the advent of internet. As viewers are moving towards using the internet as the mode of watching television, it imposes further constraints on commercial providers that seek revenue from advertisers. These advertisers can promote their product on the internet at a relatively cheaper price which poses risk of growth of advertising revenues. Also since the BBC provides free internet service, the problem increases multi fold (Brook, 2006). Discussion The most viable option that is being considered by the government is to look for a merger between the providers. BBC should merge with other providers and in this manner could become an institution. However, BBC is not without its problem. BBC faces issues of administration and inability to manage resources properly. In order for BBC to maintain and improve upon its position, it needs to bring about considerable change in the way it is operating. Firstly, BBC needs to be open to knowledge sharing and collaboration. At this point of time, BBC is unwilling to share its resources with other providers and having government support, this means that BBC has more power over resources than any other provider (Foster and Meek, 2009). However, this provides too much power in the hands of BBC. Right now, BBC is dominating the scene not because of its original content or creative coverage but because of the amount of funds it receives from the government (Jakubowicz, 2006). By moving towards a merger, BBC may gain monopoly over the market and this has to be avoided at all costs. Rather than a merger, Ofcom should focus on developing a partnership whereby both the parties can benefit from the situation. A collaborative effort will improve the industry and would provide additional revenues to the industry. Also there has come a need for improving the content of the providers. Reality TV has quickly taken over the main bulk of the content with programmes such as Big Brother (Brown, 2011). While Big Brother attracts its share of viewers, the industry needs to revive some of its old programmes such as Blue Peter to cater to the increasing diverse market. Conclusion Change is coming in the television industry as technology has greatly changed the media landscape. In this era, competition has increased and the industry is trying hard to make a successful shift from analogue to digital content. For this, the industry needs to be more creative and should focus on a collaborative and united front in order to work out the problems plaguing the television industry of Britain. References Brook, S. (2006) Media groups unite against BBC London: The Guardian, Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/may/18/broadcasting.digitalmedia [Accessed 25 December, 2012] Brown, M. (2011) The future of public service broadcasting is brighter than you think, London: The Guardian, Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2011/may/17/public-service-broadcasting-future-bright[Accessed 25 December, 2012] Foster, R. And Meek, K. (2008) Public Service Broadcasting In The United Kingdom, London: The Social Market Foundation Jakubowicz, K. (2006) Public service broadcasting: a new beginning, or the beginning of the end? Retrieved from http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/media/doc/PSB_Anewbeginning_KJ_en.pdf [Accessed 25 December, 2012] House of Lords (2009) Public service broadcasting: short-term crisis, long-term future? Authority of the House of Lords, London : The Stationery Office Limited McDonnell, J. (1991) Public Service Broadcasting: A Reader, New York: Routledge Negrine, R. M. (1994) Politics and the Mass Media in Britain, New York: Routledge Ofcom (2012) Public Service Broadcasting: Annual Report 2012, Retrieved from http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/broadcast/reviews-investigations/psb-review/psb2012/section-a.pdf [Accessed 25 December, 2012] House of Commons: Culture, Media and Sport Committee (2007) Public service content: first report of session 2007-08, Vol. 2: Oral and written evidence, UK: The Stationery Office Scannell, P. (n.d.) Britain: Public Service Broadcasting, from national culture to multiculturalism (w:) Marc Raboy (red.) Public Broadcasting for the 21st century. Luton: John Libbey Media. Read More