The future of public service broadcasting (PSB), in the face of fierce competition from commercial operators for audiences, lie in quality programming that promote the values of society, the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA) Mrs. Elizabeth Smith has said.
She said PSBs must endeavour to offer those products that commercial operators cannot.
“It goes back to values. There can be locally produced programming for children, for instance, which should originate in their world and explain it to them. We do not have to impose on them a diet of foreign cartoons, some of them excessively violent,” Mrs. Smith said.
Mrs. Smith, delivering a lecture on the topic: The Future of Public Service Broadcasting, in the last of the series in the 75th Anniversary Lectures of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), disclosed that audiences for public service output fell from 58 percent in 2005 to 55percent in 2009, adding that the same is the trend in Commonwealth countries.
“Despite this trend, there is still strong appreciation of the PSB channels, with 63 percent saying they deliver well-made, quality programmes, which is up on the figure of 58 percent in 2006,” she said.
A worrying development in the Commonwealth, according to Mrs. Smith is where PSBs have lost respect because they have stopped programming to cherished societal values and have become subservient state broadcasters, serving the Government before their public.
As a result, their news does not have credibility compared with their commercial competitors. It is slower because permission to broadcast certain sensitive material has to be obtained. Their news all too often focuses primarily on that day’s activities by the Government.
For broadcasting to move away from a state broadcaster and more in the direction of a PSB, it is by adopting and working to strong values, which include encouraging understanding of the world, stimulating knowledge and learning , and reflecting national cultural identity.
Mrs. Smith said an essential area that needs to be addressed, however, is that of funding for the PSB.
“There is a problem in having salaries paid by the state, with advertisements and sometimes a licence fee paying for the rest.
“This gives the broadcaster the worst of all worlds: they can be vulnerable to pressure from both the state and the commercial world,” she said.
She observed that different countries have evolved different ways of funding their PSBs, including: voluntary contributions in the USA; a high license fee in the UK and Australia; and a mixed model in most of Asia and Africa.
New Zealand and Singapore have tried a Fund for PSB activities, through which money can be bid for by any broadcaster for a defined PSB purpose; for instance, the broadcasting of Parliament, for local drama, or to support local music among others.
Mrs. Smith said for each country, the funding system has to be something which evolves out of its own history, something that works for it. “You are the masters of your soul: You are the captains of your fate,” she said.
By Emmanuel KWABLAH |
