Public Service Broadcasting: Markets and ‘Vulnerable Values’ in Broadcast and Print Journalism

Abstract

Broadcasting began life in competition with newspapers, first with radio in the 1920s and then again with television in the late 1940s/early 1950s. Its ability to reach mass audiences, however, prompted the state to make broadcasting comply with certain licence conditions deemed inappropriate for newspapers, where a free market was judged a precondition for an independent press. These regulatory obligations have long since been designated ‘public service values’ and acknowledged as profound influences on the past, present and future of the UK’s broadcast ecology and wider media culture. According to Blumler (1992a), however, the values of public service broadcasting have become increasingly ‘vulnerable’ in the face of market forces and commercial competition.