The Public Service Concept

Throughout much of its post–World War II history, British television has formed a recognizable if evolving system: principled, realistic, capacious, and flexible. Its goals, structures, and production practices have periodically been retuned to chime with shifting social needs, cultural tastes, and more pragmatic imperatives, including government policy requirements. Yet, amid its numerous adaptations to change, significant continuities of principle and approach have hitherto endured.

Can the same element of principled continuity be discerned today, when the pressures of change on British broadcasting are unprecedentedly far-reaching, challenging, and continuous? Is what is emerging from the present vortex of pressure, rethinking, and adaptation a system revamped but in fundamental respects still true to itself? Or is a quite different television system being born in Britain?

The crux of the answers to these questions lies in the fate of the public service idea in new and less-congenial conditions. Although until recently the British notion of “public service” was nowhere explicitly defined, it was widely understood to embrace purposes of programming range, quality, and popularity with the general viewing audience. Other emphases included universality of reception; reflection of national identity and community; provision of a civic forum, enabling debate and informing audiences on the key issues of the day; due impartiality in coverage of such issues; the editorial independence of program makers within the overall regulatory framework; respect for children’s entire personality and development needs; special regard for minorities; avoiding offense to law and order, taste and decency; and, latterly, the promotion of intercultural awareness and understanding.

The sway of this idea of public service helps to explain many past programming strengths of British television:

• investment in news and current affairs programming, including treatment of election campaigns as transforming civic events

• an impressive tradition of children’s television, including a wide range of entertainment, information, drama, and animation, not only on Saturday and Sunday mornings but also on midafternoon weekdays on the two most popular channels;

• provision of drama in a very wide range of formats, subject matter, and cultural levels;

• reading soap operas frequently laced with explorations of significant social issues and moral dilemmas;

• vigorous documentary strands;

• the cultural patronage role of arts coverage, including funding of a chorus and five large orchestras by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC);

• well-resourced programming in natural history, popular science, and technology;

• investment in a wide range of educational television (for schools, further and adult education, the Open University, and prime-time public awareness campaigns), social access programs, public access programs, and programs for immigrant communities.

  The traditional role and influence of “public service,” however, can no longer be taken for granted. Some broadcasting executives and knowledgeable commentators are even suggesting that it has reached its “sell-by date,” although others still believe that it can be revised for meaningful application in current conditions.

  Be that as it may, many of the props that used to support the classical version of public service broadcasting have been undermined by sociocultural and technological forces. On the one hand, audience tastes have shifted. Didacticism is less acceptable. Deference to cultural and political elites has evaporated. Interest in conventional politics has diminished. Audiences specifically for television news have declined, especially among younger viewers and listeners. Under these conditions, past ways of fulfilling the civic function of broadcasting appear less viable. On the other hand, advances in technology have given audience members more opportunities to choose programming in line with their tastes.

  The Structure of British Television

  Until relatively recently, British television was a limited-channel, highly regulated, public service system that periodically admitted, while striving to contain, commercially competitive impulses. Three of its five terrestrial analog channels still have public service remits (BBC 1, BBC 2, and Channel 4); the fourth (Channel 3 of Independent Television ([ITV], a federal grouping of 15 regionally based services, plus national companies of breakfast television and Independent Television News) has significant public service requirements; whereas the fifth (Channel 5, which was launched in 1997 and covers approximately two-02.31 thirds of the country) has more notional ones. Competition for larger audiences is principally waged between BBC 1 and ITV’s Channel 3 (with the former overtaking the latter in 2001, after lagging behind in previous years).

  The opening of Channel 4 in 1982 as an advertising-financed but nonprofit publisher (not a producer) of programs changed the prevailing television system in two ways. Legally required to be innovative, Channel 4 did pioneer new forms and styles of both factual and fictional programming. Structurally, it encouraged the growth of a large sector of some 900 independent program-making companies of diverse sizes and production specialties. This growth was strengthened by the Broadcasting Act of 1990, which obliged all terrestrial broadcasters to commission at least 25 percent of their output from such sources. As a consequence, the production arms of the ITV companies were scaled back, and a process whereby network controllers entertain or solicit program pitches from other companies became more common.

  After an initially slow diffusion of cable and satellite offerings, British television is fast becoming a fully fledged multichannel system. Forty percent of the country’s households can receive numerous channels via one of three methods: through locally based cable systems (mostly provided by Telewest and NTL, serving about 3 million subscribers in 2002); through a nationally distributed digital satellite system provided by BSkyB (which is 36 percent owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International Corporation and serves over 5 million subscribers); or through a terrestrial digital system provided by ITV Digital (owned by Carlton Communications and Granada Television, now the dominant companies of the ITV network, having acquired most of the others in successive takeovers and mergers; ITV Digital offers to just over 1 million subscribers somewhat fewer channels than its competitors).

  At the end of 2001, channels other than the five terrestrial networks attracted a one-fifth share of total viewing. The main loser was ITV’s Channel 3, the advertising revenue of which was squeezed as its share fell to 25 percent of the total audience. The BBC’s share was nearly 40 percent (over 25 percent for BBC 1 and nearly 13 percent for BBC 2), while Channel 4 attracted 10 percent of the viewing audience (slightly down on previous years) and Channel 5 was watched by 6 percent (on a slight upward trend). A significant slice of the nonterrestrial audience gravitates to BSkyB’s premium sports and movie channels. Nevertheless, even in multichannel homes, the mainstream networks combined held almost 60 percent of the total viewing audience, and for the commissioning and financing of original fictional or factual programming, British television is still predominantly dependent on the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4.

  Governance

  Three organizations have been central in the governance of British television. First, government responsibility for broadcasting is lodged with the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport (previously termed the Department of National Heritage, succeeding the Home Office in 1992, which had taken over from the Postmaster General some years earlier). This department appoints the members of all regulatory bodies, oversees policy development (increasingly in collaboration with the Department of Trade and Industry), and initiates legislation and debates in Parliament.

  Second, a board of 12 governors is appointed by the Queen in Council (in practice the government of the day) to direct the British Broadcasting Corporation in the public interest. The BBC is a large organization of approximately 24,000 employees and a £2.4 billion annual income, the bulk of which comes from an annual license fee (£104 in 2000–01) levied on every household with a television set. Fixed by negotiation between the BBC and the government, the level of the fee tended in the past to keep pace with the retail price index, but it is due to exceed that by 1.5 percent annually until 2006.

  The BBC’s obligations are outlined in a Royal Charter and Agreement, the present terms of which run until 2006. These spell out in some detail both the BBC’s public service programming role and the governors’ supervisory duties, and the charter also authorizes BBC involvement in commercial activities (which earned the corporation £100 million in 2000–2001). The governors appoint the BBC director general and, in consultation with him or her, an executive committee of 17 directors, including four individuals responsible for programming (drama, entertainment, and children’s; factual and learning; sport; and news) plus a “new media” director, who is in charge of the BBC’s increasingly entrepreneurial interactive and online services. Traditionally, senior management decided most matters of BBC policy and programming, with the governors serving more as a sounding board and ultimate authorizer, commenting only after the fact on individual broadcasts of which they approved or disapproved. From the 1970s, however, the governors became increasingly active, and in the late 1980s they were a spur for fundamental organizational reform. More recently, they have come under pressure to demonstrate their independent ability to oversee the BBC in the “public interest,” rather than its corporate interests.

  The third governing body is the Independent Television Commission (ITC, known in previous incarnations as the Independent Broadcasting Authority and the Independent Television Authority), which holds jurisdiction over all advertising-financed television. The ITC’s writ has run over Independent Television’s Channel 3; Channel 4, which is legally required to be innovative and to cater to different interests and tastes from those served by Channel 3; Channel 5; cable and satellite services originating in Britain; and, since 1997, a multiplex of digital terrestrial television.

  The ITC’s duties are set out in the Broadcasting Act of 1990, and its 12 members are appointed by the government. Its main tasks have been to franchise the commercial television companies by a process of first tendering for and then auctioning the licenses, and to enforce the license conditions thereafter. The Broadcasting Act posited a “quality threshold,” which all applying companies had to cross before being admitted to the auction itself, at which the highest bidder would normally be the winner. From 1993, when the new Channel 3 licensees took over, the ITC was a relatively resolute regulator, holding the companies to their obligations (through directives, warnings, and fines as necessary), and annually reporting, sometimes critically, on their programming performances. As of late 2001, however, this system was poised to depend more heavily on self-regulation by the companies themselves.

  Two other features of the system of governance should also be mentioned. First, elaborate codes of practice have been evolved to cover a wide range of matters on which programs could cause offense. The ITC has drawn up four such codes—on program sponsorship; advertising standards and practices; advertising breaks; and a so-called Program Code—and the ITV companies are required to introduce effective compliance procedures. The BBC has developed a 300-page booklet of Producers’ Guidelines, oversight of which is vested in a separate Editorial Policy Unit. In addition, for the specific areas of violence, sexual display, taste, decency, and bad language, the government established in 1988 a Broadcasting Standards Council (now Commission) to issue a Code of Practice, which all broadcasters must take into account and in light of which viewers may submit complaints for Commission findings.

  Second, public expectations of broadcasting and options for its future development have been shaped in the past by a series of comprehensive reviews by independent committees of inquiry appointed by the government. (The committees’ main reports are listed in the Further Reading section of this entry.)

  The History of the British Television System

  Thus, Britain hosts a complex and thoroughly mixed television system. From its inception, British television has progressed through five overlapping phases.

  First, up to 1955, development of the medium was subordinated to the needs of radio. Having provided sound broadcasting since 1922, the BBC inaugurated the world’s first television service in 1936, shut it down during World War II, and reopened it in 1946. In the early postwar years, however, television enthusiasts waged an uphill battle against those in higher BBC echelons who saw the medium as a cultural Trojan horse—committed predominantly to entertainment, brash and childish, not very civilized, and conducive to audience passivity. The balance began to shift in 1952, first, after the appointment as director general of Sir Ian Jacob, who realized that television had to be taken more seriously, and, second, with the striking success in June of that year of the televising of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth—a spectacle with great symbolic impact, audience reach, and appeal.

  This phase came to an end through a characteristic political development, one that aimed to reconcile a cultural mission for broadcasting with chances to exploit the advertising potential of television and to upgrade the claims of popular taste. The Television Act of 1954 authorized creation of a new advertising-financed service, to be called Independent Television (purposely not “Commercial Television”), in competition with the BBC. Although the Beveridge Committee enquiry of 1951 had recommended renewal of the BBC’s monopoly, the incoming Conservative government in that year adopted a minority report that proposed “some element of competition” in television. Bitterly challenged inside and outside Parliament, the government had to concede crucial safeguards against rampant commercialism: no sponsorship; only time spots of controlled length and frequency would be sold to advertisers who would have no say in program content; and creation of a new public corporation, an Independent Television Authority, to appoint the companies and supervise their performance in light of requirements specified in the act.

  From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, there followed a second phase, one of vigorous but creative competition between an insurgent ITV and a threatened BBC. Although it aroused doubts, fear, and dismay among some at the time, that competition is now widely regarded as having advanced the medium’s programming powers and viewers’ all-round enjoyment. From the outset, ITV set its cap at neglected mass tastes, especially for entertainment, while cultivating a more informal and accessible presentation style and celebrating what one executive termed “people’s television.” After experiencing a dramatic loss of viewers (down to a 28 percent share at the nadir), the BBC fought back hard all across the programming board.

  Many achievements ensued. Since ITV was based on separate companies in London and other parts of the country, British television catered for the first time to diverse regional interests in addition to metropolitan ones. Television news was transformed—with named news readers, pace, incisiveness, and eye-catching pictures. Inhibitions on political and election coverage were shed. Saturday afternoons were devoted to coverage of top sporting events. A host of memorable children’s programs were developed. New forms of television drama were pioneered. New comedy stars (for example, Tony Hancock, Jimmy Edwards, Charlie Drake) emerged, served by high-profile writers. The BBC created an early evening topical magazine, Tonight, the sprightliness and irreverence of which broke sharply with the corporation’s traditions. Yet the flag of authoritativeness was also flown in its weekly current affairs program, Panorama; a new arts magazine, Monitor; and an in-depth interview program, Face to Face.

  In this phase, the British concern for blending potentially opposed impulses in its television system remained strong. For its part, the BBC had to become more competitive and seek a larger audience share to sustain its claim to license-fee funding and its status as Britain’s national broadcaster. However, this was not to be its sole aim and was to be achieved through high standards of quality across a broad range of programming. Endorsing its record, the Pilkington Committee enquiry (1962) recommended that the BBC be awarded a second channel (BBC 2, which opened in 1966). Finding that ITV programming had become too commercial, trivial, and undemanding, the committee proposed stronger regulatory powers and duties for the ITA. The next television act accordingly instructed the Independent Television Authority to ensure a “proper balance and wide range of subject matter having regard both to the programmes as a whole and also to the day of the week on which, and the times of day at which, the programmes are broadcast,” as well as “a wide showing of programmes of merit.” The ITV companies were also obliged to submit their program schedules for advance approval to the ITA, which could direct the exclusion of any items from them.

  In much of the 1960s and early 1970s, a third phase ensued, as hierarchical and consensual ties loosened and traditional institutions were criticized more often in the name of modernization. Broadcasters became concerned to portray the different sectors of a pluralist society realistically in both fictional and factual programs, and to be more probingly critical themselves. For Hugh Greene, BBC director general from 1960 to 1969, public service implied putting an honest mirror before society, reflecting what was there, whether it was “bigotry . . . and intolerance or accomplishment and inspiring achievement.” He also believed broadcasters had a duty to take account of changes in society, the challenges and options such changes posed, and where they might lead. He even regarded impudence as an acceptable broadcasting quality (a far cry from founding father John Reith’s stress on dignity). Illustrative of this spirit were hard-hitting satire (That Was the Week That Was), anarchic comedy (Monty Python’s Flying Circus), more forceful political interviewing, series set in northern towns (Coronation Street, The Likely Lads), realistic police series (Z Cars), social-issue drama (Cathy Come Home), and socially conscious comedy (Till Death Us Do Part, featuring a Cockney racist, and Steptoe and Son, featuring a rag-and-bone man and his son).

  In a fourth phase, throughout much of the 1970s, British television increasingly acquired the image of an overmighty subject, attracting unprecedentedly sharp criticism and pressure to mend its ways. On balance, more of the fire was directed at factual than fictional programming. In 1971 politicians of all parties had been outraged by a BBC program about Labour in opposition, Yesterday’ s Men, deploring its flippant tone, lack of openness when interviewees were briefed about the intended approach, and questions put to former Prime Minister Harold Wilson that seemed beyond the pale (e.g., about earnings from his memoirs). Thereafter, the political establishment became more assertive of its interests, more organized in its pursuit and more vocal in its complaints. Spokespersons of other groups also voiced dissatisfaction over stereotypical portrayals and limited access. Traditional moralists (like the members of Mary Whitehouse’s Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association) were deeply unhappy about what they regarded as increasingly permissive depictions of sex and violence in programs. Media sociologists chipped in with a series of studies purporting to undermine the pretensions of broadcasters to impartiality and objectivity, and to demonstrate how news coverage of social conflicts supported the ideological status quo. Other critics perceived a middle-ground convergence in BBC and ITV output that excluded unconventional perspectives and opinions. Behind these otherwise different reactions, there was a shared concern over the difficulties of holding broadcasters to account for their policies and performance.

  Structural responses to this chorus of criticism included some tightening of editorial controls; creation by the BBC of a Community Programming Unit to help groups to present their ideas on their own terms in a new strand of access broadcasting; and establishment of a Programme Complaints Board by the BBC to consider complaints against producers of unfair representation and invasions of privacy. The most important outcome, however, was the creation in 1982 of Channel 4 with its brief to be different, experimental, and heterodox. Although commercials would be sold on the channel, pains were taken to avoid competition for advertising with ITV. Channel 4’s budget was therefore fixed by the IBA on the basis of funds it levied from the ITV companies, which were allowed to sell (and keep the revenues from) its advertising. Thus, a viable source of funding would be tapped, Channel 4 would be guaranteed sufficient resources for its tasks, and its innovative efforts would be insulated from advertisers’ conformist pressures.

  Beginning in the mid-1980s, the fifth phase of British television has been dominated by issues of structure and finance, plus probing of the contemporary meaning of public service. This period has witnessed a more interventionist role for government, which apparently has felt obliged to pronounce more often upon wide-ranging policy questions.

  The era has hosted two main waves of development. One, up to the mid-1990s (during the Conservative administrations of Margaret Thatcher and John Major), unleashed a tide of radically revisionist commercialism, which effected major changes but was also resisted and curbed at key points. The other (from 1996 to the present) has promoted the development and diffusion of digital terrestrial television, aiming to position the United Kingdom as a “world leader” in this new communications technology.

  The curtain-raiser was appointment in 1985 of the Peacock Committee on Financing the BBC to consider alternative sources of revenue to the license fee, including advertising and sponsorship. Its 1986 report condemned the existing system as a cozy and overly “comfortable duopoly,” lacking financial disciplines to keep costs down in both the BBC and ITV; it defined the fundamental aim of broadcasting as increasing through competition “the freedom of choice of the consumer and the opportunities available to offer alternative wares to the public”; and it proposed that “public service” in British television be scaled down from a full-blown to a market-supplementing model. Yet the committee also counseled against the sale of commercials by the BBC, since competition for advertising would narrow its range of programming. Although the government accepted this last recommendation, it drew heavily on the committee’s rationale for its policies to overhaul British television.

  The government acted directly on the advertising-financed sector through three significant features of the 1990 Broadcasting Act. One was the introduction of competition for advertising by requiring Channel 4 to sell its own commercials and authorizing a fifth commercial channel. Another was the new franchising system of auctioning licenses to the highest bidder among qualified applicants. A third was a change in status of the regulator, whereby the new ITC lost the old IBA’s broad powers to preview programs and schedules in advance; hereafter it could only enforce company compliance to specific obligations defined in law and licenses after the fact.

  Even so, a full-scale commercialism was avoided. Channel 4 was given a safety net, whereby it would be subsidized by the Channel 3 companies should its advertising income fall below 14 percent of the total advertising and sponsorship income of Channels 3 and 4. Also, in a period of intense debate while the act was passing through Parliament, the “quality threshold” for franchise applicants was much strengthened. Companies would have to give a “sufficient amount of time” to a series of mandated programs, including national and regional news, current affairs, religion and children’s television; cater to a variety of tastes; and give a “sufficient amount of time” to “programmes that are of high quality.” Moreover, the ITC fleshed out some of these requirements in precise quantitative terms, specifying, for example, that companies would have to offer 90 minutes of high-quality current affairs programs weekly, at least two hours of religious programs, and 10 hours a week of children’s television, including a range of entertainment, drama, and in formation.

  The government promoted change at the BBC by conveying its expectation of far-reaching reforms, appointing a forceful chair of the Board of Governors (Marmaduke Hussey) who shared its priorities, and implying that the terms of the next BBC Charter (to take effect in 1996) were at stake in the process. Led by directors general Michael Checkland (from 1987) and John Birt (from 1991), the BBC’s managerial structure was overhauled. Overheads were cut, axing more than 2,000 jobs. Most important from the government’s standpoint were two steps: an internal market (known as Producers’ Choice) was introduced in relations between program producers and providers of technical facilities, and an aggressive policy was adopted of BBC entry into international markets of multichannel television, program sales, and coproduction. Nevertheless, the BBC also undertook a fundamental review of the meaning and implications of “public service” in multichannel conditions, the results of which appeared in Extending Choice (1992) and People and Programmes (1995). Concentrating mainly on future directions and roles, the former proposed three priority purposes: “informing the national debate”; “expressing British culture and entertainment”; and “creating opportunities for education.” More attuned to the modern choosy audience member, the latter stressed themes of relevance and accessibility and the need for program makers in all fields to take greater account of popular interests, tastes, and attitudes.

  A commitment to promote digital technology was announced in a 1995 White Paper (Digital Television Broadcasting: The Government’s Proposals) and embodied in the Broadcasting Act of 1996. The presumed advantages of digital technology included massive expansion of channel capacity; improved picture and sound quality; release of analog spectrum for other uses; early entry of British producers into the global market of digital programming; and readier access of British households to the “information society” via interactivity, home shopping, home banking, e-mail, and the Internet. This last advantage appealed especially to the Labour government, which came into power in 1997 under Prime Minister Tony Blair, who set a target of making Internet access available to all Britons wanting it by 2005. The 1996 Act required the ITC to license a multiplex for provision of digital terrestrial television, which it awarded in 1997 to a consortium of the two largest ITV companies under the name of Ondigital (now ITV Digital).

  This push for digital television has required fresh policy thinking in three areas. First, how quickly can digital replace analog transmission? Specifying two tests by which the shift to digital would be guided, availability (all receivers of analog television should be able to receive the same channels digitally) and affordability (consumers should not have to face unacceptably large costs), the government hopes that switchover will be possible by no later than 2010.

  The second area of policy reevaluation concerns the role and financing of the BBC. In 1998 the Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sport declared that public service broadcasting remained essential in the digital age. He defined public service television as neither a niche nor a safety net for that which commercial TV would not deliver, but as a broad approach to programming of interest to the community. It followed that the BBC should maintain its role as a “high quality comprehensive public service broadcaster,” with the place of its services being guaranteed on all multichannel systems, “with due prominence.” Also, the BBC should develop a portfolio of new digital terrestrial channels, additional to its existing BBC 1 and BBC 2 services, subject to approval by the Secretary of State as con forming to public service criteria.

  The BBC’s response coincided with the 2000 appointment of Greg Dyke, a former ITV executive with a track record for policies of realistic pragmatism, as director general. Overall, he seeks to ride two policy horses simultaneously: to justify a universally imposed license fee by demonstrating the BBC’s programming popularity with the viewing audience and to offer programming sufficiently different from commercial provision to legitimate the BBC’s public status.

  Five particular aims have characterized Dyke’s regime at the BBC: to cut sharply its administrative costs (from 24 percent to 15 percent of its income by 2003), channeling the savings into programming; to compete more vigorously for the mass audience against ITV, especially by scheduling more popular programming on BBC 1 (to clear the way for such shows, BBC 1’s half-hour news at 9:00 P.M. was moved to 10:00 P.M.); to press program makers in all genres, particularly news, current affairs, and politics, to address audiences more accessibly; to focus a significant part of the BBC’s public service contribution on the large-scale production of so-called landmark factual events (e.g., such series as Walking with Dinosaurs, Walking with Beasts, and The Blue Planet, and a day-long coverage of the country’s National Health Service in February 2002, culminating in an interview with the prime minister); and, finally, to carve out a significant place for the BBC in the multichannel future of digital television.

  Pursuit of this last aim has been shaped by the assumption that to appeal to increasingly choosy and diverse audiences, channels must have clear profiles. As digital television diffuses more widely, more singular identities will gradually be sought for the mixed-genre channels of BBC 1 and BBC 2. In addition, the BBC intends to create five new free-to-air digital channels: a 24-hour news service (News 24, already in operation); a channel geared to the tastes of younger audiences (to be named BBC 3); an “unashamedly intellectual” channel, based on the arts, music, ideas, and in-depth discussion (BBC 4); and two daytime channels of children’s programming. To finance all this, the government awarded the BBC a uniquely generous increase in the license fee of 1.5 percent above inflation annually until 2006 (rejecting a 1999 proposal by the Davies Committee on the Future Financing of the BBC for owners of digital sets to pay a supplement to the license fee, as likely to deter investment in new sets by consumers).

  The third main item on the government’s media policy agenda was the regulatory framework. Anticipating greater cross-media convergence via digital technology, the government proposed in its 2000 White Paper (A New Future for Communications) a radical overhaul of the regulatory system, which had hitherto relied on separate authorities for specific services. The five existing regulatory agencies (the Independent Television Commission, the Broadcasting Standards Commission, the Radio Authority, the Radio Communications Agency, and the Office for Telecommunications) will be merged into a single body, the Office for Communications (OFCOM)—modeled, some contend, on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

  As of early 2002, implementing legislation had not been introduced into Parliament. However, two features of the government’s ideas are noteworthy and controversial. One is relaxation of the public service obligations of advertising-financed television. These would be overseen through a system of monitored self-regulation, depending heavily on annual statements by providers of how they intended to realize—and subsequently how they had fulfilled—those obligations. The second feature is retention of the Board of Governors as a separate regulator of the BBC, which would not be placed under OFCOM (although the BBC would possibly be open to sanctions by OFCOM for failure to uphold the corporation’s public service remit).

  Looking to the Future

  British television has thus been extensively revamped since the 1980s. The resulting system is very difficult to define. It conforms neither to classic public-service models nor to a U.S.-style fully commercial paradigm (merely allowing a market-supplementing public sector at the margin). Multichannel expansion plus digitally based new media seem to be spawning new kinds of television systems, which may prove more nationally idiosyncratic than previously.

  In early 21st-century Britain, three differences from the past stand out. First, the competition for viewers is far less restrained, and it matters far more than it ever did to all big players in the system. Second, British broadcasting is becoming less closely regulated than it used to be. Third, different programming balances are being struck. For example:

• The early evening soap operas have been conscripted into heavy competitive service, appearing three to five nights a week on BBC 1, ITV, and Channel 4 (instead of only once or twice as in the past).

• Analytic documentaries on social and political issues have largely been displaced by historical, nature, and slice-of-life documentaries, as well as various “docudramas.”

• The diversity of children’s television has narrowed, with increased reliance on animation, entertainment, and imported programs from the United States.

• Certain “old-fashioned” public-service standbys of arts, current affairs, and religious programming have been moved out of prime-time into late-night, weekend, or minority-channel slots.

• Political programming is continually being reviewed and revised in the cause of popular accessibility.

• Certain program genres, which previously would have been regarded as unacceptable, now flourish, such as quizzes with huge rewards for winners, dating shows, con fessional programming (even Jerry Springer), and a host of “reality” programs, featuring ordinary people in extraordinary, testing, or sensational situations.

  Amid all these developments, the public service tradition remains influential in important ways. First, it continues to operate at the level of “high policy,” in the government’s commitment to a capacious, community-serving notion of public service and to the BBC as its keystone provider. This was reflected in the appointment in 2001 of Gavyn Davies, a staunch supporter of public service broadcasting, as chairman of the BBC Board of Governors. Second, the BBC demonstrates its commitment to the public service tradition in its decision to extend its public service presence into multichannel and multimedia settings. However, its multichannel portfolio is edging television provision toward a radio model, offering relatively bounded bodies of content to relatively segmented audiences. Third, the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 continue to invest significant resources in a broad range of programming (including educational television and high-quality news), not concentrating them only on entertainment. Finally, the public service tradition is expressed in the abiding values and sources of creative motivation among many working producers, directors, and writers.

  From such evidence, it may be concluded that a serious effort is being made in Britain to adapt public service principles to multichannel expansion, competitive exigencies, and the onset of a more selective, consumer-minded, less-deferential, and more skeptical viewing public. In this sense, British television is straining to be true to its past self.

  Nevertheless, the role of “public service” in the British system is being appreciably modified. From an overarching creed that applied across the board of all genres, it has become a more singular one, jostling for influence amid the impact of many other imperatives (such as the need to beat the competition, the need to be accessible, the need to be eye-catching, and the need to be exportable, as well as the need to fill time slots inexpensively with repeats or old movies). From a principle that shaped all channels similarly, the public service concept is being applied more unevenly (less present on the majority channels than on those serving minorities). As a consequence, “diversity,” once a core value of British broadcasting, appears destined to become less a vertical and more a horizontal feature as the system evolves in coming years.