Department of Political and Social Sciences The Political Independence of Public Service Broadcasters Chris Hanretty Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute Florence December 2009 EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE Department of Political and Social Sciences The Political Independence of Public Service Broadcasters Chris Hanretty Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute Examining Board: Prof. Alexander H. Trechsel, European University Institute (Supervisor) Prof. Gianpietro Mazzoleni, Università degli Studi di Milano (External supervisor) Prof. Adrienne Héritier, European University Institute Prof. Anker Brink Lund, Copenhagen Business School © 2009, Chris Hanretty Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-Share Alike licence. Hanretty, Chris (2009), The Political Independence of Public Service Broadcasters European University Institute DOI: 10.2870/13655 Hanretty, Chris (2009), The Political Independence of Public Service Broadcasters European University Institute DOI: 10.2870/13655 ii [ 2nd November 2009 at 18:57 ] ABSTRACT In this thesis, I demonstrate that the degree of political in- dependence that a public service broadcaster has depends on the degree of legal protection given to it, and on the size of the market for news in that country. The latter affects broadcaster independence by creating more standardized and professionalized news, which in turn reduces politi- cians’ incentives to intervene in the broadcaster. The former affects broadcaster independence by making it less likely that such intervention will be effective. I demonstrate these claims in two ways. First, I conduct a large-N statistical analysis of 36 public service broadcasters (PSBs), in which I demonstrate that legal protection news market size are statistically significant predictors of PSB independence (as I operationalize it), and that other sug- gested explanatory factors — party system polarization and bureaucratic partisanship — have no effect. Second, I carry out a comparative historical analysis of six European PSBs — Radiotelevisione Italiana, Radiotelevisión Española, Radio Telefís Éireann (Ireland), the British Broad- casting Corporation, Danmarks Radio, and Sveriges Radio and its associated companies (Sweden) — and substantiate the claims made in my statistical analysis. In particular, I demonstrate that where the market for news was bigger, broadcasters capitalised on pre-existing journalistic experi- ence, adopting the house-styles of press agencies and learn- ing from journalists’ associations. Conversely, where the market was small, that experience could not be drawn on, and broadcast journalism attracted political intervention. Hanretty, Chris (2009), The Political Independence of Public Service Broadcasters European University Institute DOI: 10.2870/13655 iii [ 2nd November 2009 at 18:57 ] Hanretty, Chris (2009), The Political Independence of Public Service Broadcasters European University Institute DOI: 10.2870/13655 iv [ 2nd November 2009 at 18:57 ] CONTENTS i Theory 1 1 Introduction 3 1.1 What is a public service broadcaster? 6 1.2 What is political independence? 12 1.3 Why does this matter? 13 1.4 What explanations exist already? 17 1.5 The outline of the thesis 22 2 A theory of public broadcaster independence 23 2.1 Politicians 23 2.2 Journalists 27 2.3 Theoretical assumptions and realism 31 2.4 Management 32 2.5 The possibility of intervention 33 2.6 The desirability of intervention 34 2.7 The defeasibility of intervention 35 2.8 On the market for news and rule develop- ment 39 2.9 On partisanship 44 2.10 More on sanctioning 46 2.11 Summary and list of hypotheses 51 ii Statistics 55 3 A statistical model of PSB independence 57 3.1 Operationalization 58 3.2 Methodology 67 3.3 Results 68 4 Who is appointed? 71 4.1 Veto players and appointments 72 4.2 Legislative provisions 76 4.3 Data 84 4.4 Partisanship 86 4.5 Conclusion 94 5 Who controls the purse-strings? Who asks the questions? 97 5.1 Data on funding 101 5.2 Parliamentary questioning 106 5.3 The Mediterranean countries 108 5.4 The North Atlantic countries 112 5.5 The Scandinavian countries 114 Hanretty, Chris (2009), The Political Independence of Public Service Broadcasters European University Institute DOI: 10.2870/13655 v [ 2nd November 2009 at 18:57 ] Contents 5.6 But what about the plenary? 115 5.7 Conclusions 118 iii History 119 6 The absence of Caesars: Rai 123 6.1 Fascism and the post-war period (1924 — 1960) 125 6.2 The Bernabei era (1961 — 1974) 133 6.3 Reform to reform (1975 — 1992) 138 6.4 New hopes dashed (1993 — 2008) 154 6.5 Conclusion 165 7 Radiotelevisión Española 169 7.1 From dictatorship to transition (1923 — 1977) 169 7.2 The early democratic years (1977 — 1996) 172 7.3 From Aznar to Zapatero 176 7.4 Conclusion 178 8 ‘Treading delicately like Agag’: the BBC 181 8.1 From foundation to competition (1922 — 1955) 182 8.2 The years of Butskellism (1954 — 1979) 202 8.3 From Thatcher to Blair (1979 — 2005) 216 8.4 Conclusion 227 9 Radio Telefís Éireann 231 9.1 From 2RN to television (1926 — 1960) 232 9.2 Refoundation, confrontation (1960 — 1976) 235 9.3 1976 until the present day 240 9.4 Conclusion 244 10 ‘Disturbing Neither God Nor Hitler’: SR/SVT 247 10.1 AB Radiotjänst, 1924 - 1954 249 10.2 Sveriges Radio 1955 - 1975 261 10.3 ’68 and all that: Sveriges Radio and Sveriges Television 272 10.4 Conclusion 279 11 Danmarks Radio 283 11.1 Establishment until the fifties (1922 — 1955) 283 11.2 The fifties until vänstervridning (1957 — 1974) 287 11.3 The professionalization turn? (1980 —) 295 11.4 Conclusion 299 iv Conclusions 301 12 Comparing the six broadcasters 303 12.1 The market and professionalization 304 12.2 The journalists 307 12.3 Management 309 12.4 Rules 310 12.5 Conclusion 315 Hanretty, Chris (2009), The Political Independence of Public Service Broadcasters European University Institute DOI: 10.2870/13655 vi [ 2nd November 2009 at 18:57 ] Contents 13 Conclusion 317 13.1 Reassessing independence 317 13.2 Reassessing legal protection 319 13.3 Reassessing the causal chain 321 13.4 Implications for reform 322 13.5 Continued relevance 325 a Legal sources 329 Bibliography 331 Hanretty, Chris (2009), The Political Independence of Public Service Broadcasters European University Institute DOI: 10.2870/13655 vii [ 2nd November 2009 at 18:57 ] Contents Hanretty, Chris (2009), The Political Independence of Public Service Broadcasters European University Institute DOI: 10.2870/13655 viii [ 2nd November 2009 at 18:57 ] LISTOFTABLES Table 1.1 List of national public service broad- casters 10 Table 3.1 Values of independence for thirty-six broadcasters 60 Table 3.2 Index of legal protection 65 Table 3.3 Regression results 68 Table 4.1 Expectations of partisanship by ap- pointment method 84 Table 5.1 Analysis of variance in licence fee changes by government 105 Table 5.2 Questions per parliamentarian per term 118 Table 12.1 Comparison of countries 305 Hanretty, Chris (2009), The Political Independence of Public Service Broadcasters European University Institute DOI: 10.2870/13655 ix [ 2nd November 2009 at 18:57 ] List of Tables Hanretty, Chris (2009), The Political Independence of Public Service Broadcasters European University Institute DOI: 10.2870/13655 x [ 2nd November 2009 at 18:57 ] LISTOFFIGURES Figure 2.1 Types of journalist 29 Figure 2.2 Newspaper circulation and journalists’ associationalism 43 Figure 2.3 Legislation constrains 50 Figure 2.4 Legislation is epiphenomenal 51 Figure 3.1 Predicted versus actual results, statis- tical model 70 Figure 4.1 Appointment 72 Figure 4.2 Partisanship of PSB boards 87 Figure 4.3 Box-plot of mean partisanship by ap- pointment method 88 Figure 5.1 Real value of licence fees over time 102 Figure 6.1 Rai timeline 124 Figure 7.1 RTVE timeline 170 Figure 8.1 BBC timeline 182 Figure 9.1 RTÉ timeline 232 Figure 10.1 SVT timeline 248 Figure 11.1 DR timeline 284 Hanretty, Chris (2009), The Political Independence of Public Service Broadcasters European University Institute DOI: 10.2870/13655 xi [ 2nd November 2009 at 18:57 ] List of Figures Hanretty, Chris (2009), The Political Independence of Public Service Broadcasters European University Institute DOI: 10.2870/13655 xii [ 2nd November 2009 at 18:57 ] ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many, many people helped me to write this thesis. One most important debt is to those people who brought grist to the mill – or who, in other words, provided data: Tom Quinn (RTÉ), Cristina Jurca at TVR, Ingrida Veiksa (LTV), Tina Malavasic (RTVSLO), Margit Desch and Wolf Har- ranth (ÖRF), Tiiu Siim (ERR), Heike von Debschitz (ZDF), Grethe Haaland (NRK) and Diane Ferguson (CBC), Börje Sjöman at the Sveriges Radio Dokumentarkiv, and Ursula Haegerström, Margareta Cronholm and Erik Fichtelius (SVT). A special mention should go to the staff of the EUI library: Ruth Nirere-Gbikpi in particular has had to deal with at least one inter-library loan which I was careless enough to lose. This thesis began as an M.Phil thesis at Oxford. From that time, I would like to thank David Hine and Nigel Bowles (both of whom are arguably to blame for the fact that I decided to study for a doctorate at all), and Michael Tatham, who has been an unceasingly cheerful friend, colleague and occasional critic for the past five years. A chorus of friends have helped me with the finer points of their national cultures and languages. They include, but are not limited to, Chiara Ruffa, Costanza Hermanin, Sergi Pardos-Prado, Johan Davidsson, Jeppe Dørup Olesen, Bart van Vooren, Niki Yordanova, Elias Dinas, and Lúcio Tomé Féteira. I also owe thanks to a number of fully-paid up academics.