ISSUES IN PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING

Public Service Broadcasting in the UK

Public Service Broadcasting in the UK

Introduction

The fundamentals of public service broadcasting have major stress on the public duty and as well as providing all information regarding education and entertainment. However, problems for the public service broadcasting arise in relation to the need for accountability on the end of the broadcasters with their demand for the top quality or the high degree of independence for the purpose of carrying out their work without any pressure from the politics or without any other involvement. For resolving out this issue the power or the authority was transferred to the broadcasting authority to carry out their services with the lines declared by the parliament. The main objective of this act is to make sure that the broadcasting institution which includes BBC, ITV was eventually held responsible to the parliament and at the same time these broadcasters are also free from the direct control of the governmental. This public service broadcasting has a profound and long record in the United Kingdom. Public service broadcasting has been financed and also has created many high quality programs. The productions of these public service broadcasters are in general innovative and original with new programs with the new concepts rather than taking the programs from the abroad and making their copies.

Discussion

Key Issues

The public service broadcasting is facing two key problems in the United Kingdom. These issues are making difficult for the broadcasters to provide quality programs as they are having problems in licensing and the funding. The first major issue is that public service broadcasting has to deal with the challenges forced by the change in the means of signal transmission that is from the analogue system to the digital system. And the second major issue is the governance of the BBC has been under influence of the public inspection. Switchover of the Analogue

In the near future, broadcasting service of the television in Britain will entirely be focused on the digital system which will include the public service broadcasting. Digitalization of television broadcaster will carry many benefits to the audiences. The change in the modern technology, however, will bring the positive change in the television broadcast. The audio and visual contents will be of higher quality and the public have more options in terms of channels that they can select from the terrestrial platform. Nevertheless, the digital broadcasting system will offer a challenge for the future of the public service broadcasting. (Banerjee & Seneviratne, 2005, pp. 54-87)

The two privately owned public service broadcasting that is ITV and Sky TV, are obliged by their analogue licensee to broadcast the content that are related to the public service. Though, , there will be no advantage for them to carry on to offer costly public service programming that are relate to the post analogue switch-off. These broad casters that are Sky TV and the ITV will be free to put out under a fully commercialized digital television ...