Television across Europe: Regulation, Policy and Independence

Overall, if one consistent message emerges...it is that public service broadcasting stands on the brink of far-reaching change. The momentum of technological change, the ripples of which are reaching even the least developed broadcast sectors examined in this report, is unstoppable...

Produced by the Open Society Institute (OSI)'s EU Monitoring and Advocacy Programme (EUMAP), in cooperation with OSI's Network Media Program (NMP), this 1662-page monitoring report traces and compares television trends in 20 European countries. It provides a regional overview and individual country reports from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. (Monitoring was carried out in collaboration with national expert reporters and partner organisations in each country.) The report analyses broadcasting across the continent and contains a series of recommendations for national governments, the European Union (EU), the Council of Europe (CoE), the Organisation for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE), and other interested parties.

Key Findings

Television remains the primary source of information for most people in Europe, despite the dynamic progress of new information technologies. There are nearly 4,000 television channels in Europe. Further, "Digitalisation has advanced quickly...in the past two years after a hesitant launch around 2000. Traditionally, media industry products were sold as concrete material goods, such as books and CDs, or were distributed by analogue terrestrial television broadcasting. Converted into digital signals, media content is now divorced from a concrete form and can be distributed by the Internet, mobile telephony, satellite broadcasting and similar advanced platforms."

Despite the range of options, the report reveals that the television market is in reality highly concentrated in terms of both ownership and audience shares. In fact, the "pivotal role of television in supporting democracy in Europe is under threat. Public service broadcasters are compromising quality to compete with commercial channels, and many of them depend on governments or political parties. Meanwhile, ever-larger concentrations are developing in the commercial sector, often with clear political affiliations. These developments jeopardize broadcasting pluralism and diversity, with the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe most at risk." Further, "universally available high quality programmes are scarce. Investigative journalism and minority programming are hard to find in both public service and commercial broadcasting. Newscasts are often tabloid, particularly on commercial channels. As a result, viewers often do not receive the information necessary to make informed democratic choices."

As this report shows, "the argument for public service broadcasting remains compelling. Public service broadcasting is not only a bulwark against commercial trends that, left unchecked, would be likely to drive standards further down, reducing the less lucrative strands towards invisibility. It also provides essential leverage for raising standards in all programme genres."

Recommendations (from the perspective of the report's authors)

On media policy:

• National governments and international organisations should support the dual system of public and private broadcasters as an essential element of democracy. Market forces alone must not determine broadcasting policy.
• Governments and parliaments should ensure the political and operational independence of broadcasting regulators.
• Regulators must have the resources and powers to monitor broadcasters, and their compliance with legislation and licence conditions.
• The European Union (EU) should establish an independent agency to monitor media markets and media concentration in the EU and on global markets.

On public service broadcasting:

• Broadcasting regulators should ensure that the public service broadcasters' programming complies with a clear public service remit.
• Governments and parliaments must ensure that the funding of public service broadcasters is transparent.
• National media policy should include strategies for the development of local television stations and community media.

On commercial broadcasting:

• Governments and parliaments should adopt legislation ensuring transparency of ownership of all media outlets, including external investors.
• The EU should introduce legislation to ensure transparency of media ownership.
• Commercial broadcasters should be encouraged or obliged to broadcast public service programmes.

On digitalisation:

• Public service broadcasters should automatically receive licences for digital broadcasting.
• Regulators should allocate digital licences to a diverse range of operators to ensure that dominant positions in analogue broadcasting are not extended.
• Parliaments should adopt legislation to prevent the emergence of monopolies of operators involved in the digital chain - such as digital multiplex operators, television stations, programme packagers and software providers.