The roots of public-service broadcasting are generally traced to documents prepared in support of the establishment of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) by Royal Charter on January 1, 1927. This corporation grew out of recommendations of the Crawford Committee appointed by the British postmaster general in August 1925. Included in those recommendations was the creation of a public corporation that would serve as a trustee for the national interest in broadcasting. It was expected that as public trustee, the corporation would emphasize serious, educational, and cultural programming that would elevate the level of intellectual and aesthetic tastes of the audience. The BBC was to be insulated from both political and commercial influence. Therefore, the corporation was a creation of the Crown rather than Parliament, and funding to support the venture was determined to be derived from license fees on radio (and later television) receivers rather than advertising. Under the skillful leadership of the BBC’s first director general, John Reith, this institution of public-service broadcasting embarked on an ethical mission of high moral responsibility to utilize the electromagnetic spectrum (a scarce public resource) to enhance the quality of life of all British citizens.

Within the governance of national authorities, public-service broadcasting was re-created in various forms in other democracies in Western Europe and beyond. At the core of each plan was a commitment to operating radio and television services in the public good. The principal paradigm adopted to accomplish this mission was the establishment of a state-owned broadcasting system that functioned either as a monopoly or at least as the dominant broadcasting institution. Funding came in the form of license fees, taxes, or similar noncommercial options. Examples of these organizations include the Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation, Danish Broadcasting Corporation, Radiodiffusion Television Française, Swedish Television Company, Radiotelevisione Italiana, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The ideals on which these and other systems were based suggested services that were characterized by universality and diversity; however, there were notable violations to these ideals, especially in Germany, France, and Italy. In some cases the state-owned broadcasting system became the political mouthpiece for whomever was in power. Such abuse of the broadcasting institutions’ mandate made public-service broadcasting the subject of frequent political debates.

Contemporary accounts of public-service broadcasting worldwide often include the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) as American examples. However, unlike the British model that was adopted across Europe, the U.S. system came into being as an alternative to the commercially financed and market-driven system that has dominated U.S. broadcasting from its inception. Whereas 1927 marked the beginning of public-service broadcasting in Britain, the United States Radio Act of 1927 created the communication-policy framework that has enabled advertiser-supported radio and television to flourish. Language contained within this act explicitly mandated broadcasting stations to operate “in the public interest, convenience, and necessity,” but the public-service ideals of raising the educational and cultural standards of the citizenry were marginalized in favor of capitalistic incentives. When the Radio Act was replaced by the Communications Act of 1934, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recommended to Congress that “no fixed percentages of radio broadcast facilities be allocated by statute to particular types or kinds of non-profit radio programs or to persons identified with particular types or kinds of non-profit activities.” It was not until 1945 that the FCC created a license for “noncommercial educational” radio stations. These stations were envisioned to be the United States’ answer to the ideals of public-service broadcasting, but the government’s failure to provide any funding mechanism for noncommercial educational stations for nearly 20 years resulted in a weak and undernourished broadcasting service. Educational radio in the United States was referred to as the “hidden medium.”

Educational television was authorized by the FCC’s Sixth Report and Order adopted on April 14, 1952, but the creation of a mechanism for funding educational radio and television in the United States had to wait for passage of the Public Broadcasting Act on November 7, 1967. Funding levels never approached the recommendations set forth by the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television in its report Public Television: A Program for Action, in which the term “public television” first appeared.

During the 1970s and 1980s public-service broadcasting worldwide came under attack, as the underlying principles on which it was based were called into question. The arrival of new modes of television delivery—cable television, satellites, videocassettes—had created new means of access to broadcast services and thus changed the public’s perception about the importance and even legitimacy of a broadcasting service founded on the principle of spectrum scarcity. Ideological issues also came into play. Conservative critics raised questions about the very notion of a public culture, whereas some liberals charged that public-service broadcasting was a closed, elitist, inbred, white-male institution.

Furthermore, movement toward a global economy was having an ever-increasing impact on the way policymakers saw the products of radio and television. The free-market viability of educational and cultural programming as successful commercial commodities seemed to support the arguments of critics contending that public-service broadcasting was no longer justified. Deregulation of communication industries was a necessary prerequisite to the breakdown of international trade barriers, and the shift toward increased privatization brought new players into what had been a closed system. The growing appeal of economic directives derived from consumer preferences favored the substitution of the U.S. market-forces model for the long-standing public-trustee model that had been the backbone of public-service broadcasting. Adding to the appeal of the U.S. paradigm was the growing realization that program production and distribution costs would continue to mount within an economic climate of flat or decreasing public funding.

By the early 1990s, the groundswell of political and public dissatisfaction with the privileged position of public-service broadcasting entities had reached new heights. Studies were revealing bureaucratic bungling, cost overruns, and the misuse of funds. One commission after another was recommending at least the partial dismantling or reorganization of existing institutions. New measures of accountability demanded more than idealistic rhetoric, and telecommunication policymakers were turning a deaf ear to public-service broadcasting advocates.

Communication scholars, who for the most part had been reticent on these issues, began to mount an intellectual counterattack, based largely on the experiences of public broadcasting in the United States. Critics of U.S. communications policy underscored concerns about the evils of commercialization and the influence of the open marketplace. Studies pointed to the loss of minority voices and a steady decline in programs for segmented populations. Scholars also challenged the illusion that new television delivery systems such as 500-channel cable networks and direct broadcast satellites would offer unlimited program choices. Content analyses revealed program duplication, not diversity, across the channels, and the question of just how far commercial broadcasters would venture away from the well-proven formulas and formats received public attention. A concerned electorate was beginning to ask whether the wide-scale transformation of telecommunications was not without considerable risk. Many worried that turning over the electronic sources of culture, education, and political discourse to the ever-shifting forces of the commercial marketplace might have profound negative consequences.

By the mid-1990s, telecommunications policy issues ranged from invasion of privacy to depictions of violence on television, the manufacturing of parent-controlled TV sets, revisions in technological standards, and finding new funding alternatives to sustain public-service broadcasting in some form. These issues were also firmly embedded in the public discourse. Communication corporations appeared and disappeared daily. The environment of electronic communications was in a state of flux as companies selling new technologies vied for a piece of a quickly expanding and constantly evolving marketplace. Public-service broadcasters reassessed their missions and began building new alliances with book publishers, computer software manufacturers, and commercial production houses. In the United States, public radio and television stations experimented with enhanced underwriting messages that looked and sounded more and more like conventional advertising.

In June 2000 a group of scholars assembled at the University of Maine to assess the merits of public-service broadcasting worldwide, and to develop plans for media reform within the United States. At this occasion the formation of a new organization, Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting, was announced, with the association aiming to restore U.S. broadcasting to its original mission of public service. Despite all the fanfare and high hopes of those assembled in Maine, however, issues related to growing commercialization and the inability to get Congress to create an insulated trust fund to support public broadcasting remained unresolved in the early part of the 21st century. A ruling by the FCC that permitted public broadcasters to use a portion of their newly assigned space on the digital spectrum for commercial ventures seemed to signal that the trend toward an increased blurring of the line between commercial and noncommercial licenses would continue. Other U.S. efforts to create increased citizen access to the airwaves were largely thwarted when Congress minimized the potential impact of new low-power FM radio stations, an innovation that had been devised by the FCC as a way to deal with growing numbers of so-called pirate radio stations that were operating illegally.

In the early 2000s telecommunications policy worldwide seemed increasingly tied to the opportunities afforded by a new global economy shaped by market forces and privatization. Whether public-service broadcasting ideals could survive within this evolving political and economic environment remained a topic for robust debate.