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Ellen Mickiewicz, Director, De Witt Wallace Center for Communications and Journalism, Duke University, and Erhard Busek, Chairman, Institut fur den Donauraum und Mitteleuropa, forwarded to participants preliminary "Suggestions for Discussion" June 23, 1997. They were drawn from a spring planning conference at Duke, and previous meetings of the Commission on Radio and Television Policy. A summary follows.
I. What is Public Television? Norms and Goals
What do the participants believe public television should be? (independence from government; distinctive alternative; programming for minorities, children, educational, cultural; non-profit; multi-media.)
II. Steps to Autonomy
(constitutional guarantees; "buffers" of semi-autonomous agencies; ownership limits; consistent regulation of broadcasting, cable, and other technologies; possible government channel; fair and balanced news; open records; multi-dimensional public information system)
III. Economic Choices
(state subsidies; commercial advertising; voluntary contributions; license fees on receivers, taxes on sales of sets; frequency auctions; surcharges)
IV. Globalization
(quotas of national and local languages and cultural programming)
To the above suggestions I would add the following. I do not intend them to be argumentative; to the extent they are, my own personal view is often contrary to that suggested by the question. I do believe, however, they are issues we need to address, questions we need to be able to answer to the satisfaction of our critics.
1. Aside from what we think public broadcasting "should be," what are we referring to now with the phrase? In the United States we would draw a distinction between (a) "public broadcasting" (CPB, PBS, NPR, local stations), (b) "government broadcasting" (VOA, AFRTS), (c) "community broadcasting" (Pacifica, cable access channels), and (d) "commercial broadcasting" (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox; cable programming services). At this conference do we mean to include within "public broadcasting" (a), (b) and (c) or only (a) (that is, non-commercial, non-governmental, public organizations)?
2. What do we hope to come out of these deliberations: theoretical analyses and ideals, or action plans? Both are worthwhile; both are necessary. But, to the extent we are actually talking about change, about restrengthening (or restructuring) "public broadcasting," there are a great many pragmatic, political questions regarding how we move, "globally," from point A to point B. We are dealing with enormous, entrenched economic and political forces -- not the least of which is a somewhat addicted and relatively satisfied television audience.
3. Are we focusing on television to the exclusion of radio? The U.S., initially willing to spend little more than 1% of what other countries spend on public broadcasting, could have started with a system of public radio: buying up, when necessary, at least two A.M. and 3 F.M. stations in each of the largest 100 markets, and programming five national radio networks. Radio provides about 10 times the "bang for the buck" as television. The U.S. did not do that. What is the present potential role of radio, as distinguished from television, in (a) delivering the content, (b) building public support for public broadcasting, and (c) doing both at a fraction of the cost of television?
4. What are the relative merits of a "national" public broadcasting system (centralized programming utilizing, say, translator stations) compared with one with decision-making (and program-making) authority distributed among local centers? The U.S. public television system uses the latter model. As a result, we have invested a disproportionate share of our public broadcasting dollars in local studios and equipment, administrators and staff, board members, and so forth. For the most part, however, the programming most talked about, and watched, is nationally distributed.
5. Are we assuming that the primary alternative to public broadcasting is advertising-driven commercial broadcasting? Do we believe market forces, if left unrestrained, will create such a system (that is, profit-seeking broadcasters, and advertisers, will program to create the largest possible audiences)? If so, from a public policy perspective what, precisely, is socially inadequate or undesirable about such a system? Otherwise put, what are the "marketplace failures"? Is it that (a) broadcasting, cable and satellite programming services will not offer a wide enough range of diversity of programming, (b) although the diversity is available, many people cannot afford it, (c) even those who can afford it will not voluntarily choose the programming that would be "good for them," or that they "need," (d) the advertising necessary to such a system, however adequate the programming, places a disproportionate and undesirable emphasis on materialism and hedonism, or (e) something else? Is there something about radio and television programming that distinguishes it from other goods and services in the marketplace; something that requires those of us who are "the good, the true and the wise" to make paternalistic judgments for the rest of our fellow citizens?
6. What is the proper balance between "autonomy" for independent producers and "responsibility" and "democratic control" in public broadcasting? Someone must decide what goes on the air and what does not. To what extent should those decisions be left to the "creative community" that "knows what it is doing"? To what extent should they be made by administrators who understand the finances? By audience ratings that reflect what the viewers seem to want? Where is "the public" in "public broadcasting"? What processes and procedures are there, or should there be, for the public to influence the programming it gets from public broadcasting? To what extent should these go beyond a right to "petition" (to write letters that can be ignored) to legally enforceable rights to sue, to vote, to participate in board meetings?
7. How can principles of managerial efficiency best be applied to public broadcasting institutions that are, by definition, "non-profit," receive very little detailed outside oversight, and tend to become over-staffed and burdened with bureaucratic procedures? How can such organizations be subject to (to borrow the title of John Gardner's book) perpetual "Self Renewal"? How can they be made open to innovation, and hospitable to the nation's best creative resources?
8. How can the management of public broadcasting be kept open to diversity and public access? Consider the membership of U.S. public broadcasting boards (PBS, CPB, local stations). How many members are "establishment" representatives of large corporations, banks, and so forth? What proportion are spokespersons for consumer, citizen, and minorities' action groups; from trade unions (officers or rank and file); from youth and elderly organizations; environmentalists, and so forth? It is difficult to get national programming funded or scheduled unless it is first "approved" by a major corporation willing to "underwrite" it. As a result, ironically, there is often more "non-commercial" programming (in the sense of programming challenging the commercial establishment) on commercial television than on public television. (As but a couple of hundreds of examples, an early "Public Broadcasting Laboratory" feature, making fun of commercials, was cancelled. That concept is used on the commercial "Saturday Night Live." In a late night talk and variety show on NBC the host, Jay Leno, in the opening monologue, often makes rather vicious fun of major corporations, sometimes resulting in threats of libel suits and cancelled advertising. Nowhere, to my knowledge, does public broadcasting find corporate underwriting for anything remotely close.)
9. To what extent are we simply assuming that "television watching is a good thing" -- or that it could, potentially, be made into a good thing? Marie Winn's book, The Plug in Drug, and others, suggest that the best TV programming for children under the age of eight is none at all. The average American is watching something like three or four hours a day; the average set is on something like seven hours a day. Whatever the programming may be, the activity during these hours is "watching television" -- often to the exclusion of conversation within the family, school children not doing homework, with the adverse health results of lack of physical activity, and so forth. Don't we need to be able to make the case as to why it is desirable to provide more "good programming" for people to watch?
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* Nicholas Johnson, a former Commissioner of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, and author of How to Talk Back to Your Television Set, now teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law. E-mail: njohnson@inav.net Web page links to resume, bibliography, text of books and articles: http://soli.inav.net/~njohnson -- including the republication of An Autonomous Media.
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