redefining “the public” in public service broadcasting

The current review of the BBC’s charter is set to end later this year, with a funding settlement following in March 2007. The BBC was created by a royal charter and is funded through a TV license fee, currently £131.50 per year, payable by anyone using a television (or watching BBC TV content online). The review process includes much debate – internally, in the Government, in the media and by academics – about the future shape and funding of Britain’s public service broadcasting company (and my employer).

Discussing the future of public service broadcasting isn’t just a British obsession. Michael Geist, writing for the Toronto Star, suggests that Canada’s public service broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), needs to redifine the "public" if it is to carve out a future role for itself. He says:

While most CBC debates tend to focus on the ideal broadcasting model, the future of the public broadcaster may actually lie in rethinking the meaning of "public", rather than redefining the model of broadcaster.

For decades, the public in public broadcaster has been linked to the public benefit of establishing a national venue where Canadians can tell their own stories. Moreover, supporters argue that the public particularly benefits from news reporting that features a unique Canadian perspective on global developments and at the same time provides comprehensive coverage of events back home.

Today those public benefits are being called into question — quite understandably so, since Canadian content regulations ensure that private broadcasters also carry Canadian programming and the public is able to access news from a wide range of Canadian sources both offline and online.

If the CBC can no longer claim to be a unique home to Canadian programming and perspectives, then perhaps its future lies in transforming itself from Canada’s public broadcaster to the broadcaster of the Canadian public, telling our stories and providing our news from the bottom up, rather than the top down…

Canadian stories are being told in record numbers, yet they are not found on the CBC. The Internet is their home.