Public Broadcasting

In this chapter, I give an overview of the facts of public service broadcasting that are relevant for media economics. The term “public service broadcasting” denotes a special regulatory framework that applies to individual radio and television stations as well as online offerings that serve the public interest. Such a framework exists in the D-A-CH area and in many other European countries. The particular framework consists of institutional rules (e.g., constitutional rules, laws, and state treaties) and organizations (e.g., in Germany, the public service broadcasters). Distinct to the forces of the market, the primacy of the public remit ensures that public service broadcasting is oriented toward societal goals and norms and that it is financed by public funds for this purpose. As a result, such media communication does not depend solely on whether it is marketable and profitable from a private economic point of view. This degree of independence from state influence or other unilateral interests ensures that public service broadcasting cannot be instrumentalized unilaterally; it depends not only on the form of internal self-regulation (e.g., internal pluralism), but also on how public funding is organized and how decentralized the organizational structure is. The primacy of the public remit ensures that public service broadcasting improves the opinion-forming process through diversity of opinions and information and thereby contributes to the functioning of democracy. The services should protect citizens from one-sided and unbalanced reporting and manipulation, contribute to social integration by means of diverse programming approaches, and promote culture. The same holds true in the context of entertainment, as well.