Small Among Giants Television Broadcasting in Smaller Countries Gregory Ferrell Lowe & Christian S. Nissen (eds.) NORDICOM NORDICOM’s activities are based on broad and extensive network of contacts and collaboration with members of the research community, media companies, politicians, regulators, teachers, librarians, and so forth, around the world. The activities at Nordicom are characterized by three main working areas. • Media and Communication Research Findings in the Nordic Countries Nordicom publishes a Nordic journal, Nordicom Information, and an English language journal, Nordicom Review (refereed), as well as anthologies and other reports in both Nordic and English languages. Different research databases concerning, among other things, scientific literature and ongoing research are updated continuously and are available on the Internet. Nordicom has the character of a hub of Nordic cooperation in media research. 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Nissen (eds.) © Editorial matters and selections, the editors; articles, individual contributors; Nordicom 2011 ISBN 978-91-86523-16-9 Published by: Nordicom University of Gothenburg Box 713 SE 405 30 Göteborg Sweden Cover by: TBA Printed by: Litorapid Media AB, Göteborg, Sweden, 2011 Environmental certification according to ISO 14001 Contents Gregory Ferrell Lowe & Christian S. Nissen Preface 7 Gregory Ferrell Lowe, Christian Edelvold Berg & Christian S. Nissen Size Matters for TV Broadcasting Policy 21 Robert G. Picard Broadcast Economics, Challenges of Scale, and Country Size 43 Christian Edelvold Berg Sizing Up Size on TV Markets. Why David would Lose to Goliath 57 John D. Jackson with Yon Hsu (on Taiwan), Geoffrey Lealand (on New Zealand), Brian O’Neill & Michael Foley (on Ireland) & Christian Steininger (on Austria) The Socio-Cultural Context of Broadcasting Markets 89 Josef Trappel Structure and Dynamics. The Television Broadcasting Industry in Smaller Countries 109 Erik Nordahl Svendsen From Sovereignty to Liberalisation. Media Policy in Small European Countries 129 Chris Hanretty The Governance of Broadcasters in Small Countries 161 Tom Moring & Sebastian Godenhjelm Broadcasting for Minorities in Big and Small Countries 177 Annette Hill & Jeanette Steemers Big Formats, Small Nations. Does Size Matter? 201 Author Biographies 217 Bibliography 2__ Preface Gregory Ferrell Lowe & Christian S. Nissen In September 2007 the BBC rounded up an international group of ‘the usual suspects’ for a conference. Public broadcasters, policy makers and media researchers from Britain and beyond deliberated Repositioning Public Service Broadcasting: The BBC Charter Renewal and its Global Aftermath. Emphasis- ing the ‘global aftermath’ hints at an important strand of conference discourse: The BBC experience can be a model for public broadcasters in other countries. Although a subtext initially, this became an explicit line of discussion when the premise was challenged by participants representing smaller countries in Europe. There is within the continental broadcasting community a long and frequently fruitful tradition of looking across the Channel for inspiration. That is evident when governments and regulators (domestic as well as EU) are designing policies related to industry structures and the governance of public service broadcasting [PSB]. It is also evident when executive managers in both sectors of the broadcasting industry seek fresh possibilities for organisational restructur- ing or strategic renewal. As with many traditions this has often passed without critique. It is simply taken for granted that big countries with big markets and big operators are suitable for modelling, and that it is desirable to do this. This book questions that assumption and tries to answer a range of relevant ques- tions on the basis of empirical research. Can one realistically expect a media market in a country with a few mil- lion people to have the same opportunities as countries with many times the population? How reasonable is it to assume that a country with a GDP that is less than several trillions, or a per capita income that is half or less of a big, rich country’s average, to have the same possibilities – or even all of the same needs? Is it rational to expect a public broadcaster in a small country operat- ing with a fraction of the revenue and workforce of Britain’s BBC, Germany’s ZDF or America’s major networks to even be able to copy their way of doing things? Is it wise to uncritically apply the same logic with the same structural 7 GREGORY FERRELL LOWE & CHRISTIAN S. NISSEN expectations for media regulation and strategising to small countries with small populations, markets and languages? When conditions differ, best solutions will differ in turn. The need for clarification is urgent because broadcasters and policymakers are increasingly stipulating that how things are organised and handled in the biggest media markets provide generalisable models for all markets. This carries the risk of false comfort by those seeking to devise some template with which to steer decision-making, both among broadcasters struggling with uncertainty in turbulent markets and regulators who want to reduce the arduous demands for adjudicating complaints about PSB causing market distortion. Although their pursuit is understandable, it risks false comfort because it relies mainly on an untested belief that broadcasting is broadcasting – that ‘one size fits all’. The Research Project These concerns was the catalyst for an international gathering of media re- searchers tasked with qualifying the hypothesis this book interrogates: Size is of fundamental importance for understanding how broadcasting works, and why. Our collaborators, each represented by a chapter, employ varying theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches to examine the complex nature of relevant phenomena. Despite diversity, which in our view enriches the results, we have all worked collaboratively to diagnose characteristic challenges and opportunities for television broadcasting in smaller countries. The research and analyses presented in this book confronts the one-size- fits-all presumption. In the main, we conclude that in crucial respects this pre- sumption is not valid – one-size policies do not fit all countries anymore than one-size strategies fit all companies. There are important differences between countries that hinge on dimensions related to size that affect how broadcasting companies, both public and private, are organised and operated, indeed that establish real limits in how they can be organised and operated. These practi- cal realities deserve close attention when policymakers contemplate remits, remedies