Re: [Swprograms] What does it mean to be a public service international broadcaster?

[Richard Cuff <rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx>]

Likewise interspersing...


On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 23:42:39 -0500, John Figliozzi
<jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> The difficulty in all this--and the overwhelming pressure brought to
> bear by the social bias favoring the commercial sector in general--is
> amply demonstrated by the slow drift toward commercialism [including]  the pursuit of
> programming on the basis (increasingly) of larger general audiences
> rather than specific constituencies.

Is this pursuit of larger general audiences wrong?  After all, it
could be argued that those audiences are attractive targets because
they, too, have been abandoned or underserved by commercial
broadcasters...or that the pursuit of larger general audiences
reflects better stewardship of public resources.

Can we extend the line of thinking to public service international
broadcasting?  Many here (myself included) believe the BBCWS has "gone
off the tracks" -- that it is making decisions incompatible with its
public service status.

The BBCWS in English serves two audiences -- the expat audience and
the global non-British English-speaking audience.  Do the differing
needs of these two audiences warrant different strategies?

Aside from coming across as inconvenienced shortwave radio enthusiasts
and nostalgia buffs, how do we convince those who oversee the BBCWS
that their train has gone off the tracks?

> 
> In other words, if you believe (and can get the larger society to
> believe) that commercial broadcasting can and will produce everything
> that public broadcasting traditionally has and still to some extent
> does now (whether that belief is supportable by fact or not), then what
> reason is there for public broadcasting to exist?

Maybe what we can do is point out that the major media choices --
reflecting commercial standards and policies -- have resulted in
distortions as to what is reported -- in fact, making society less
"world-aware".

How do we take some of these principles -- which are based on the
structure of the USA radio marketplace -- and apply these back to the
BBCWS (and others) to help them see the errors of their ways?
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