What role for public broadcasting in the new media future?

2006

Posted by Ben Compaine

Speaking of the future of the media industry, do we continue to need publicly funded television and radio to accomplish the objectives that were set out in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967? Is the chronic controversy over biases, typified most recently in the resignation of the last chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, worth the tax dollars (relatively small at $400 million out of a $2.3 billion budget)?

Last month a blue ribbon panel headed by former Netscape CEO James Barksdale and former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt took a stab at addressing the future of public service media in a report, “Digital Future Initiative: Challenges and Opportunities for Public Service Media in the Digital Age.” In the Foreword they write: “Our nation’s media marketplace is becoming increasingly fragmented and on-demand…. If today’s public broadcasters can successfully adapt to this new environment, the potential for enhanced public service through digital media is vast…”

From the start public broadcasting in the U.S. was destined to be a political football. On the one hand, the legislation required a "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature." But it also prohibited the federal government from interfering or controlling what is broadcast. This set up an obvious tension where the government that created the CPB would not be able to do anything about a perceived failure to meet its obligation for objectivity and balance without interfering in some way.

In the U.S., where there has always been more choice for viewers than most other places, the Public Broadcast Service network (PBS) has always had very low ratings. And those audiences have been heavily skewed to educated, higher income demographics— the very groups that have access to buying DVDs, premium cable/satellite programming tiers such as the Sundance Channel, as well as books, magazines, etc. Public media’s core constituency, as described by the public broadcasters’ own promotions are “affluent, influential, educated, discerning, and diverse. They are the decision makers and opinion leaders…”  Central Michigan Public Television claims that its audience penetration “runs deeper into upscale households than any other medium. According to surveys conducted by Roper Reports, public television viewers have high incomes and are likely to have invested in stocks, bonds and mutual funds.”

Meanwhile, public broadcast individual contributors have been falling for years. About 4% of households contribute to a PBS entity. The bread and butter of PBS is now available on channels like Discovery, History, Biography. Their aggregate audience is greater than PBS. C-Span, available in nearly 90% of households, provides political coverage that PBS could never dream about.

Viewers everywhere vote with their eyeballs. It’s not widely recognized that in early 1980s videocassette recorder adoption was faster in Europe than U.S. Why? The U.S. had market driven programming. When VCRs became available, Europeans were faster to escape the benevolent programming constraints of public authorities by becoming their own programmers using video rentals.

The “Digital Future” report argues that public broadcasters try to adapt “to this new environment,” in which case they have a future (apparently by tackling the “nation’s literacy and learning crisis.”). That in itself should send a message: if they need to work so hard at finding a media role, then maybe it is time to sunset itself. Indeed, the Digital Future panel could have started out with this point of view: if a public service media organization did not exist today, what are the compelling arguments that would rally the public to support the creation of such a service? As we think about the media landscape for the future, we do need to consider whether a publicly funded entity, with all its baggage, is truly needed.