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EU parliament hosts battle on future of public broadcasting
Leigh Phillips
DATELINE: 6/3/09
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - While the pendulum in the financial world may have swung toward the importance of government and regulation, in the realm of European broadcasting and online content, a free-market versus public-service dust-up is just getting going in Brussels.
The players in the epic contest are, in one corner, public broadcasters such as the BBC or Germany's ZDF, and, in the other corner, commercial broadcasters tag-teaming with private print and online publishers.
Smaller member states spend much more per capita on producing broadcasting content than larger states. The field of battle is a consultation, launched last November, on a draft revision of the 2001 European Commission communication on state aid to public broadcasters. The communication is to set out how the commission will interpret state aid rules to public broadcasting.
On Thursday 5 March, the two sides gathered in the European Parliament in Brussels to put their case to MEPs in the culture committee. Private broadcasters have long complained that their public counterparts are producing little more than imitations of commercial content, and are hoping that the communication will see public broadcasters reined in at the EU level back to production of what they claim is their raison d'etre - "quality programming."
The Association of Commercial Television in Europe, representing the private sector channels, says that the public broadcasting remit "must insist on distinctive content" and that to ensure this, "long-established EU Treaty rules on state aid should be applied." There is a "huge structural advantage of one party receiving guaranteed state financing on a multi-annual perspective," Ross Biggam, the director-general of the ACT, told the MEPs. "There is a funding gap in favour of the publicly-funded sector," he added. Under the "current economic conditions ...it is disingenous for [public broadcasters] to argue ...that the private sector wishes to have the digital future all for itself at a time when the publicly-funded model is so much more secure than the commercial sector."
Publishers meanwhile are horrified that with the advent of the internet, there has been "an increasing tendency of public broadcasters to migrate to the internet." With their news webpages and dozens of themed websites, the BBC and their colleagues are, according to the European Publishers' Council, "becoming in many cases publicly funded online newspaper or magazine publishers in direct competition with our own web-based services." Raising the spectre of Pravda or Izvestia - organs of Soviet-era propaganda- they warn that governments have no mandate to produce newspapers or magazines, whether in print or online.
Public broadcasters however rubbish the idea that something like BBC online is any more a mouthpiece for the UK government than its television or radio stations are, and say that the division between television, print and online is disappearing. To restrict their online activities is to leave them in an "analogue ghetto" as more and more citizens - particularly young people - are accessing their media via the internet. "The new broadcasting communication should avoid any distinction between 'old' and 'new' media," said the European Broadcasting Union in a statement."Instead, it should apply the principle of technological neutrality."
Underscoring that public service broadcasting is needed to deliver quality journalism, "original European fiction" and ensure audiovisual access to major sporting events for all citizens, not just those that can afford to watch them, the public broadcasters say their mission "should be defined in relation to the needs of society and not in relation to the market."
The public defenders are not confident they will win this contest, however. "It's not so much the private broadcasters, but the publishers that are the real enemy of public broadcasting," Marit Ingves, of the Nordic Public Broadcasters, told EUobserver. "The private broadcasters don't have a problem with all online activities, they just want it restricted somewhat." "But the publishers want to kill off entirely everything we do online," she said. "And it looks like [information society commissioner] Reding has really come down on their side." "I'm not optimistic, but it is just shocking that they are still sticking to this free-market mantra after everything that's happened in the financial world these last few months," she said.
Nevertheless, the member states have largely taken the side of the public broadcasters, who argue that a one-size-fits-all approach does not work for every EU country, particularly smaller nations, where per capita funding of culture and information is much more expensive than in the larger countries.
Last modified: Friday, March 6, 2009
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Notices
Events & Announcements
World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
DATELINE: 1/3/13
Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
NUJ HQ, 308/312 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
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DATELINE: 26/3/10
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MEDIA FOR ALL CONFERENCE
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Papers from the Media for All Conference
MEDIA MANIFESTO
DATELINE: 26/3/10
The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
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Previous stories
Public Service Broadcasting
Troubled ITV cuts jobs and costs
MPs' report expected to question BBC and Channel 4 linkup
Government considering options to solve funding crisis at Channel Four
The Slippery Slope of Public Funding: Where Will it End? Now we know:
ITV strike ballot called off
Sertuc conference postponed
Here we go again!
Campaigning for quality television
The future of PSB - postponed
Opting Out
Citizenship and Public Service Broadcasting
How do Ofcom and the BBC Trust see their Roles?
Commission recommends new TV channel for Scotland
Ofcom's 'smash and grab' raid on the BBC licence fee
World Service threatened
Wales, Devolution and Democracy
CPBF responds to Ofcom public service review
NUJ slams 'simplistic' top-slicing arguments
PSB on ITV - No thanks!
BBC unions ballot for action on jobs
Crisis looms in kids' telly
Scottish Broadcasting Commission wants to hear your views
Begin the fight back: How corporate strategists neutered the BBC
Joint statement from the BBC, BECTU, the NUJ and UNITE
BBC unions ballot for action
New Labour takes revenge on BBC
Future of ITV PSB at stake
Crunch time for TV
Digital switchover and the Whitehaven experience
BBC Trust agrees to cuts
CPBF responds to Ofcom's second PSB review
