Meshing Money with Mission: Purity Versus Pragmatism in Public Broadcasting

Abstract

This article asks whether the increasing recourse of European public broadcasters to commercial income sources endangers their public service commitments. As a benchmark, a distinctive mission for public television is outlined, concentrating on four communication tasks and four value commitments that private television tends to neglect. The implications for such a mission of three commercial revenue sources — advertising, sponsorship and foreign programme earnings — are examined. Other assimilating pressures, operative in a mixed system, which encourage public broadcasters to tailor their programming to private television are also identified. The various problems raised are explored in detail through a case study of the likely future of children's television in Britain. The author concludes that the claims of `purity' and `pragmatism' can be reconciled only through the adoption by public broadcasters of an integrity-safeguarding policy, the main elements of which are outlined.