From Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service Media Gregory Ferrell Lowe & Jo Bardoel (eds.) RIPE @ 2007 NORDICOM From Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service Media From Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service Media Gregory Ferrell Lowe & Jo Bardoel (eds.) NORDICOM From Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service Media RIPE@2007 Gregory Ferrell Lowe & Jo Bardoel (eds.) © Editorial matters and selections, the editors; articles, individual con- tributors; Nordicom ISBN 978-91-89471-53-5 Published by: Nordicom Göteborg University Box 713 SE 405 30 GÖTEBORG Sweden Cover by: Roger Palmqvist Cover photo by: Arja Lento Printed by: Livréna AB, Kungälv, Sweden, 2007 Environmental certification according to ISO 14001 Contents Preface 7 Jo Bardoel and Gregory Ferrell Lowe From Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service Media. The Core Challenge 9 PSM platforms: POLICY & strategY Karol Jakubowicz Public Service Broadcasting in the 21st Century. What Chance for a New Beginning? 29 Hallvard Moe Commercial Services, Enclosure and Legitimacy. Comparing Contexts and Strategies for PSM Funding and Development 51 Andra Leurdijk Public Service Media Dilemmas and Regulation in a Converging Media Landscape 71 Steven Barnett Can the Public Service Broadcaster Survive? Renewal and Compromise in the New BBC Charter 87 Richard van der Wurff Focus on Audiences. Public Service Media in the Market Place 105 Teemu Palokangas The Public Service Entertainment Mission. From Historic Periphery to Contemporary Core 119 PSM PROGRAMMES: strategY & tacticS Yngvar Kjus Ideals and Complications in Audience Participation for PSM. Open Up or Hold Back? 135 Brian McNair Current Affairs in British Public Service Broadcasting. Challenges and Opportunities 151 Irene Costera Meijer ‘Checking, Snacking and Bodysnatching’. How Young People Use the News and Implications for Public Service Media Journalism 167 Hanne Bruun Satire as Cross-Media Entertainment for Public Service Media 187 Mirko Lukács Education in the Transition to Public Service Media 199 Philip Savage The Audience Massage. Audience Research and Canadian Public Service Broadcasting 215 THE ROOTS OF PSM Slavko Splichal Does History Matter? Grasping the Idea of Public Service Media at Its Roots 237 Author Biographies 257 Preface This book is the culmination of papers, presentations and discussion in the RIPE@2006 conference which took place in Amsterdam and Hilversum (pro- ceedings available at: www.yle.fi/ripe). This third RIPE conference continued to strengthen and enrich collaborative work between media intellectuals con- cerned with the public interest in electronic media today and senior managers involved with the development of the public service enterprise. Conference substance was keyed to the transition from public service broadcasting to public service media as summarised in the title of this third volume in the RIPE book series published by Nordicom, the Nordic Information Centre for Media and Communication Research at the Göteborg University in Sweden. The topic is of considerable theoretical, operational and policy importance today, and we trust that readers will find the substance stimulating and useful in each of these three interdependent arenas. RIPE@2006 was organised jointly by Netherlands Public Broadcasting (Neder- landse Publieke Omroep, NPO) and the Amsterdam School of Communica- tions Research (ASCoR) at the University of Amsterdam. The organisers and participants sincerely appreciate the funding and participation from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Dutch Media Authority, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), and the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. Conference planning was handled by the Conference Planning Group. We especially thank these colleagues for their work and their host institutions for the support required for their involvement: Julia Hoffmann, Lisa Linde Nieveld, Margriet Smit and Sandra Zwier (ASCoR), Louis Heinsman and Ineke Wouden- berg (NPO), and Per Jauert (University of Aarhus, Denmark). We also thank YLE Strategy & Development for the support that enabled Lowe’s involvement. The planning group benefited from input provided by the 2006 RIPE Advisory Associates: Leen d’Haenens (Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium and Rad- boud University Nijmegen, Netherlands), Christina Holtz-Bacha (Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany), Taisto Hujanen (University of Tampere, Finland), Karol Jakubowicz (Steering Committee on the Media and New Communication 7 PREFACE Services, Council of Europe), and Jeanette Steemers (University of Westminster, UK). Warm thanks as well to John Jackson, Professor Emeritus at Concordia University in Canada. The editors want to especially thank the authors for a productive editorial process. We are grateful for your patience and appreciate the obvious com- mitment to achieving excellence. We are pleased to announce that the RIPE@2008 conference will take place in Mainz, Germany in autumn 2008. It will be co-sponsored by ZDF (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen) and the programme in Medienintelligenz at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. Helsinki and Amsterdam in November, 2007 Gregory Ferrell Lowe Jo Bardoel 8 From Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service Media The Core Challenge Jo Bardoel and Gregory Ferrell Lowe The core challenge facing public service broadcasting [PSB] today is the transi- tion to public service media [PSM]. This was clear in the discourse of scholars, practitioners and policy makers participating in the RIPE@2006 conference in the Netherlands. The contributors in this volume address crucial dimensions of that core challenge. A key dimension is the necessity of moving beyond the transmission model that has deeply conditioned professional thought in broadcasting. In the multi- media, digitized environment public service providers must mature a character of thought that privileges being effective public service communicators. That requires demand-oriented approaches to service and content provision rather than the supply-orientation characteristic of the past. It also implies the pivotal importance of securing relations wherein audiences are partners rather than targets. Other dimensions that logically follow on include developing strategy and tactics for cross-media and cross-genre content that is popular but still distinctive when compared with the commercial offer, and ensuring efficiency and effectiveness as the twin requirements for success. For policy makers the core challenge strongly implies fairly balancing the frequently contrary inter- ests of commerce and culture, which is a defining tension at European and domestic levels. Throughout this book argumentation is keyed to renewing the public service ethos and revitalising the public service mission for a multimedia and polymedia environment.1 That is vital for successful development of the public service enterprise in strategy and practice. This theme is fully in line with emphasis characterising previous RIPE volumes (Lowe & Jauert, 2005; Lowe & Hujanen, 2003). This third volume deepens critical thinking about theoretical, strategic and operational aspects incumbent in the transition to PSM.2 This book is organised into two sections plus introductory and concluding chapters. Chapters two through seven comprise the first section which is about dynamics, complications and challenges incumbent in policy development and strategy elaboration for the transition to PSM. In chapters eight through fourteen, comprising section two, contributions focus on programmatic and 9 JO BARDOEL AND GREGORY FERRELL LOWE content-related aspects. These are equally essential in the strategic realm and importantly tighten attention on tactical implications. The concluding chapter returns our focus to the conceptual roots for PSM, of obvious importance for revitalising the public service ethos. In this introductory chapter we establish a context, beginning with an over- view of EU media policy to understand why and how the commerce versus culture tension is of fundamental importance (d’Haenens & Bardoel, 2007). We then favour the social shaping of technology as a governing perspective and next consider convergence as the essential driver. A central theme hinges on the keen necessity for conceptual development to facilitate success in becom- ing public service focussed on forging a partnership with audience as active agents. We conclude with discussion about implications for content. EU media policy: PSB from the centre to an exception? Van Cuilenburg and McQuail (2003) identified three phases in European media policy, framed as paradigms: 1) emerging communications industry policy in the period before the Second World War, 2) public service media policy after the War until the 1980s, and 3) new communications policy since the end of PSB monopolies. In this third phase the policy paradigm features technological and economic convergence, socio-cultural values that privilege market-based solutions, pragmatism and populism as policy drivers, and the process of globalization which relaxes national boundaries. Although much in the dynamics is new, the issues are remarkably consistent. “In some respects, the history of Phase I has had to be replayed, but against an entirely different background, with new political ideas and social values. Once again there are new and powerful technologies with unclear potential for development, vast commercial and industrial interests at stake and governments struggling to keep abreast