Public Service Priorities in Transition
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Public Service Priorities in Transition: Catering for Minority Interests in the Public Service Media Environments of the UK and Finland Mikko Sihvonen A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Department of Languages, Information and Communications, Manchester Metropolitan University for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Languages, Information and Communications Manchester Metropolitan University May 2014 2 3 Abstract This thesis examines the impact of neo-liberal marketisation on the provision of two types of minority interest content; children’s and religious programmes, in the terrestrial broadcasting environments of the UK and Finland between 1986 and 2009. Utilising a customised explanatory model devised for this study: the Industrial Equilibrium Model, which combines elements of historical institutionalism and the Structure-Conduct-Performance Paradigm, the thesis provides an empirical record of marketisation-driven changes in broadcasting institutions and their impact on the provision of children’s and religious programmes. In so doing, the study allows us to evaluate the current state of and future outlook for minority interest content in the 21 st century marketised multi-platform broadcasting environment. The thesis demonstrates that notwithstanding significant social, political, cultural, economic and demographic differences between the UK and Finland, similar marketisation-driven changes have taken place in the strategies of broadcasting institutions. Increasing competitive pressures produced by liberalisation and reorientation of regulation have forced commercial broadcasters in particular to focus increasingly on majority preferences and populist content in their programming, while catering for minority interests occupies a lesser role in the agendas of these broadcasters. The thesis demonstrates that popular preferences increasingly inform programming strategies and production resource allocation. The rise in the preference to use commercial and economic yardsticks in measuring the performance of broadcasting companies has also resulted in an increasing preference for cost- effective and/or commercially lucrative types of programming with mass audience potential. All these changes have influenced the structure of the output of public service broadcasters, which is increasingly shaped by these populist, economic and commercial considerations, while the significance of the historically dominant social and cultural goals has declined to an extent. Through these changes in broadcasters’ institutional conduct, an understanding is gained of the impact of neo-liberal marketisation on the conceptual model of public 4 service broadcasting. The thesis demonstrates that broadcasters and regulators have adopted an increasingly consumerist interpretation of the missions of public service broadcasting, and use viewing preferences of the audience majority to set their public service agenda. This tendency has compromised their ability and willingness to cater for certain disadvantaged minorities. By highlighting potential areas of vulnerability in the emerging model for minority interest provision, the thesis also presents recommendations for securing diversity and plurality in future minority interest provision. 5 Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to my academic supervisors Dr Deirdre Hynes and Professor Seamus Simpson for their supervision, guidance and support. My sincere thanks go to my interviewees in the UK and Finland for their time and expertise. Heikki Hellman and Jim McDonnell also lent me their specialist knowledge. In particular, I would like to thank my interviewees at Yleisradio, MTV3 and Nelonen. Their cooperativeness and helpfulness highlight these organisations’ commitment to transparency and openness in their operations. My research was supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Kirkon Mediasäätiö, Kirkon Tutkimuskeskus, Manchester Metropolitan University and Oskar Öflunds Stiftelse. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to these organisations, as this study could not have been done without their generous financial support. My personal thanks go to my partner, family, friends and colleagues for their support, patience and encouragement. I owe them particular gratitude for their help with revising the thesis; a laborious and unappreciative task that too many of them were subjected to. Finally, I would like to dedicate this thesis to Raymond Fitzwalter, the long-serving producer of ITV’s World in Action current affairs programme, whose career and accomplishments in broadcast journalism have inspired me greatly. His passionate vision of the core values and missions of public service broadcasting was instilled in me in his lectures at the University of Salford. I wish that I succeed to pass his ideas on in my future endeavours. 6 Table of contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... 5 Table of contents .......................................................................................................... 6 List of charts, tables and figures ................................................................................. 11 List of abbreviations and acronyms ............................................................................. 15 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................... 17 1.1. Public service television at a critical juncture ................................................. 17 1.2. Aims, objectives and research questions ....................................................... 20 1.3. Definition of minority interest programmes ..................................................... 23 1.4. The culture realms of the UK and Finland ...................................................... 27 1.5. The structure of the thesis and chapter outlines ............................................ 30 2. The public service paradigm and neo-liberal marketisation ................................. 34 2.1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 34 2.2. History and characteristics of the European public service broadcasting model ................................................................................................. 34 2.2.1. Origins and characteristics of the European public service broadcasting model ................................................................................. 34 2.2.2. Public service versus commercial paradigm ........................................ 43 2.2.3. Public service broadcasting and catering for minority interests……….. .................................................................................................. 45 2.3. Neo-liberal marketisation and its effects on broadcasting paradigms ................................................................................................................ 48 2.3.1. The neo-liberal challenge to the public service orthodoxy.......................48 2.3.2. Neo-liberal marketisation and transformations in the broadcasting paradigm ........................................................................................ 51 2.3.3. Institutional responses to transformations in broadcasting paradigm: strategies for survival and implications of behaviour modification ..................................................................................... 56 2.3.4. Neo-liberal marketisation and programming diversity: risk of ‘ruinous competition’ .................................................................................. 61 2.4. Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 63 7 3. Analytical framework, research design and data gathering methods ...................................................................................................................... 65 3.1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 65 3.2. Analytical framework: historical institutionalism ............................................. 65 3.2.1. ‘Old’ and ‘new’ institutionalism ............................................................. 67 3.2.2. Historical institutionalism and its analytical framework ......................... 70 3.2.3. The Industrial Equilibrium Model and its contribution in analysing institutional dynamism: a customised explanatory model for the study .............................................................................................. 78 3.3. Research design ............................................................................................ 87 3.3.1. The comparative case study approach ................................................ 87 3.3.2. Justification for programme type selection ........................................... 90 3.3.3. Justification for the UK-Finland comparison ......................................... 92 3.4. Data gathering methods ................................................................................. 96 3.4.1. Television output research ................................................................... 97 3.4.1.1. Description of data collection and sampling ......................................... 99 3.4.1.2. Programme