Relevance over Revenue

Lecture 7 explored

• What is Public Media?
• What is Public Media's role in a democratic society?
• Who are the major players?
• What do they make?
• The various functions of Public Media
• Challenges for Public Media
• The Future of Public Media

As the first slide said, 

“the difference between commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting is the difference between consumers and citizens” 

(Nigal Milan, Former managing director of SBS).

In essence, Public media is for the citizens of the country in which it is broadcast, not solely for those who create it. Although in the past, public media was taxpayer supported media, this is becoming less and less so. Media may be deemed a public media so long as any profits are put back into its own production processes.

Predominantly the ABC and SBS are the public medias in Australia. Because their success does not rely on targeting viewers for advertising, most public media stations actually consider the importance, relevance and authenticity of the shows and news reports they feature. The objective the ABC news shows differs from commercial media news, as they present what they believe is most important for the viewers, not exclusively what the viewers want.

The BBC (Britain), (similar to the ABC), places public value over market impact in their public service ethos. Similarly, the ABC functions on a national level, ensuring its services are accessible everywhere in Australia, including remote areas. It caters for all ages with special provision for ethnic and other minorities. SBS, though formerly purely public media, now includes some adds. It is intended to cater for Australia's multicultural society.

Despite efforts to cater for all groups in Australia, public media is sometimes described as too serious, boring and of limited interest to the majority of the public. However I particularly liked Robert Richter's quote which rebuts this view, describing public media as the 'last bastion of long-form investigative journalism',

"... a special vehicle for voices to be heard... for visions and viewpoints... ignored by commercial media" 

(Robert Richter)

Despite not being owned by the government, legislations still regulate the actions of Public Media to a large extent. Funding is given only for certain, specific programs, and the more funding a public media outlet has, it can be perceived as less politically independent, highly undesirable in a democratic society. The view of public media as 'ideological' and slightly left leaning provides a great incentive for companies to be politically independent.

Overall, it seems the future of public media yields a media even more 'citizen' focused, and with the use of web 2.0 public media can be for the public, created by the public.