A FUTURE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVISION CONTENT AND PLATFORMS IN A DIGITAL WORLD

A FUTURE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE TELEVISION
expanded the idea of public service to
embrace diversity rather than just universality,
and allowed for balance across the schedule
rather than within programmes. In Wales, the
fourth channel was devoted to the Welsh
language service S4C.
The Conservative government that had
presided over Channel 4’s launch was also
responsible for the 1990 Broadcasting Act,
which significantly changed the nature of
commercial TV. ITV licences were to be
auctioned off rather than awarded on merit
by the regulator. The conditions were set
for a series of deals that allowed the ITV
network to merge into one company (at least
in England and Wales) by 2004. Regulation
continued, with quotas set for particular
types of programming, but a new commercial
spirit infused ITV.
By the 1990s, a technological revolution
was making cable and satellite channels
available to anyone who wanted to pay for
them. No impediment was placed in the
way of this rapidly emerging market, and
no requirements were made of these new
channels to offer original public service
programming (although they were obliged
to carry the existing PSB channels). Public
service television became the preserve of the
four legacy channels, Channel 5 (launched in
1997) and the BBC’s new digital services. The
Labour government of Tony Blair committed
itself to switching off the analogue signal by
2012, bringing the digital, multichannel future
into focus. By the end of the 20th century,
the old public service formula was holding
firm but the great technological disruption
that so characterises today’s marketplace was
already under way.
In summary, we can see the history of British
public service broadcasting policy in the 20th
century as being characterised by a series
of very deliberate public interventions into
what might otherwise have developed as a
straightforward commercial marketplace.
The creation of the BBC, the launch of an
ITV network required to produce public
service programming, and the addition of
the highly idiosyncratic Channel 4 gave the
UK a television ecology animated by quality,
breadth of programming and an orientation
towards serving the public interest. At each
of these three moments, the possibilities of
public service television were expanded and
British culture enriched as a result.
The 1990 Broadcasting Act and the fair wind
given to multichannel services may have
ended the supremacy of the public service
television ideal. Public service television may
now seem like a relic of the 20th century
and the benefits that accrue to a public
service broadcaster are far less obvious in
a multichannel and, increasingly, nonlinear
environment. It may now come to feel
like an aberration in an era of apparently
limitless consumer choice whose discourse
is increasingly dominated by economic
arguments. Indeed, as the media economist
Robert Picard argues, the “fundamental
economic and technical conditions that
led to the creation of public service
television no longer exist.” 30 Nevertheless,
it has survived, through the design of the
institutions responsible for it, because of
legislative protection, and as a result of its
continuing popularity amongst the public.
But the goodwill of programme makers and
the appreciation of audiences will not by
themselves keep it alive in the 21st century.
It is worth remembering that at all stages,
30
Robert Picard, submission to the Inquiry.
20