- Central to the concept is the licence fee
- But as audiences fragment there is no longer a national audience
- Audience no longer citizens but consumers
- Philosophy of PSB from Lord Reith: ‘to educate, inform and entertain.’
- Some critics believed Reith saw the BBC as a kind of church, producers as priests and himself as Pope or Messiah.
- Reith believed the BBC could ‘bring culture to the masses’ and ‘bring the nation together.’ It helped create a sense of national community. His vision was to unify the whole nation in a service where everyone had access to a diversity of high-quality programmes and objective news.
- Reith did not trust the public to make their own cultural choices, they needed to be guided.
- BBC still independent on goodwill of government whenever charter or licence fee comes up for renewal
- 1980s philosophy of deregulation put BBC under pressure to increase its funding from commercial activities.
- Pressure from other broadcasters began in late 1930s and particularly on Sundays when BBC broadcasting didn’t begin till 12:30 after people had been to church.
- 1939 the notion of middle-class families sting around the radio at home together changed to communal ‘families’ in works canteens and military camps.
- BBC segmented its audience by producing for different audiences.
- Forces Programme had American style programmes, comics, music and morale boosting diversions, down-to-earth and irreverent content and language.
- Need for news resulted in rapid growth of BBC’s own news gathering service. Including on-the-spot reports from the battlefields
So what is different about PSB?
- ‘free’ quality broadcasting
- no need to satisfy ratings
- can make less ‘populist’ programmes
- can represent minority interest groups
- as a result documentaries and educational programmes or hugely expensive costume dramas that only appeal to a niche audience
- yet ITV often managed and run in similar war to BBC because many execs were trained at the Beeb and come from similar background and educational establishments.
- 1962 Pilkington Committee deemed ITV as equating ‘quality with box office success.’ Modern example would be the commercial success of Big Brother but without being a piece of quality programme making.
- 1990 Broadcasting Act and expansion of services available to audiences
- Audience now consumers not citizens – society fragmented and isolated, n o longer unified except in some ideological beliefs.
How has PSB lost out? The situation now
- Cannot compete financially for sport or celebrity events or to host programmes (Graham Norton poached by BBC from C4 and Parkinson from BBC to ITV!)
- BBC unable to call itself the ‘national broadcaster.’
- Yet BBC still very popular, always attracts large audiences to national events
- BBC have made many populist programmes to maintain audience share
- Commercial channels unwilling to spend large money on making programmes and have to buy in
- BBC’s current Planet Earth hugely popular on BBC second only to Eastenders!
- BBC News bulletins still out perform all ITV’s
- ITV more concerned with making and broadcasting popular programmes rather than fulfilling any PSB remit
- BBC still appears regularly in top five of BARB charts for shows like Eastenders
- BBC and ITV’s share of audience is decreasing
- ITN criticised for tabloid approach to news on NEWS AT TEN; decline in hard news for human interest, showbiz and sensationalist stories
The future of PSB?
- Government still committed to it
- Recent broadcasting left very much to market forces
- Contradictory for BBC still seen as national broadcaster and with prestige connotations
- 80% of viewers still watch BBC and ITV despite the growth in digital and satellite
- But PSB type programmes like religious, documentaries, current affairs, educational are less popular
- and becoming increasingly marginalised in the schedules hence the move of Panorama to Sunday nights
- Commercial broadcasters are not interested in national audience because they want to maximise their viewing figures and target specific sections of the community most attractive to advertisers
- Channels increasingly designing programmes to be accessible and therefore saleable worldwide – this is globalisation
- As terrestrial channels share diminishing increasingly hard to justify a licence fee paid by all.
- But how else could PSB be funded?
- Subscription would only enable a wealthy minority to sign up
- BBC beginning to identify particular niche it can accommodate e.g. arts, ethnic groups, news, cultural, and children’s particularly successfully
- Hence the range of new channels designed for specific audiences e.g. CBeebies and Radio 7; BBC3 also has a new younger age range and 80% must feature new talent
- Commercial channels have complained of the unfairness of BBC making inroads into digital broadcasting because they are able to do so out of the licence fee, a buffer the commercial channels do not have the luxury of
- Greg Dyke DG in 2001 claimed that the BBC is ‘part of the glue which brings the whole of the nation together’ at a time when many pressures are forcing it apart.
- Consumers seem to want the BBC to continue its PSB role but equally many now object to paying for it!
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