Talk:Public broadcasting
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I removed the info on Israel Broadcasting Authority, cleaned it up and expanded it and moved it to that article. I also fixed the link to IBA in the list of public broadcasters. This article isn't really the place for details on every public broadcaster (other than the list), unless the details are illustative of some point about public broadcasting in general (e.g. not just that public broadcasting _exists_ in this or that country as that purpose is satisfied by the list at the end). Blorg 12:49, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Contents |
[edit] Advantages and Disadvantages: Confusing Phrase
Under "Advantages and Disadvantages" you list certain "cultural biases" of commercial broadcasting including the item: "law presented as if it were truth." This statement appears vague and misleading. Do you mean to say "interpretations or opinions of law presented as if they were truth"? --xerxes_sator@yahoo.com 26 May 2005 23:04 GMT
[edit] Leftist Bias
This article has a very clear leftist bias. That is, a bias in favour of public broadcasting. This is obvious especially when compared with the commercial broadcasting article (which also has a leftist bias). It would be nice to see it fixed without having to declare a NPOV dispute.
To justify this claim, note how the first (introductory and descriptive) paragraph of the commercial broadcasting article already points out a perceived disadvantage, while the "Advantages and Disadvantages" section of this article mentions only one disadvantages and proceeds to basically dismiss it in one paragraph.
[edit] "Defining Public Broadcasting" section very weak
Actually, I'd go so far as to call it horrible. Presumably the "Broadcasting Research Unit" is some British organization (the article doesn't say and it's a red link), since all the original examples came from there. More recent edits have added more international examples but have succeeded only in making the section flabbier. Only one of the points listed there has anything like the quality of a definition; the rest are at best a wish-list. The term "public service broadcasting" used in the intro also adds confusion. The intro says that the term means something different in the UK, but much of the rest of the article takes the UK as the defining example so it's hard to take it seriously. (From this perspective it's not clear what sort of distinction, if any, is being drawn; all broadcasters in this country are licensed, in the words of the Communications Act of 1934, to "serve the public interest, convenience, or necessity".) The bit about the CBC erroneously suggests that advertising is a recent thing; in fact, not having advertising on radio is the recent development (for values of recent including now 30 years of history)—TV always had advertising, and radio historically did. All in all, the section should be, if not "taken out and shot", at least shrunk by about 75%. 121a0012 16:28, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Is it really dominant?
The article states that public broadcasting is "the dominant form of broadcasting around the world." Is this really the case? Even in most European countries -- traditional strongholds of public broadcasting -- privately-owned, purely commercial television has achieved at least parity (or, in a few cases, near parity) with the older public broadcasting institutions. If one were to add up the audience statistics of the commercial vs. public radio and television services in many European countries, the results would show that public broadcasting is no longer the dominant form of broadcasting, at least according to that definition. The same is true in many Asian countries, even those where PSB has traditionally been strong. Of course, PSB has never been dominant in the Americas.
In other words, the statement may have been true until the worldwide deregulation/liberalization of the 1980s or early 1990s, but it doesn't seem to be accurate nowadays. Therefore, I suggest that the sentence be changed to "public broadcasting... has traditionally been the dominant form of broadcasting around the world" or something similar. Any input would be valuable. WorldWide Update 10:30, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] CBC history
An anon recently added the following paragraph in the middle of the Europe section:
- (Correction in order here: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation actually emulated CKUA's programming [1], Canada's first public broadcaster created in 1927 on the campus of the University of Alberta and broadcast throughout the province ever since. The BBC was created on December 31, 1926, when the British government decided it would control all broadcasting. [2] CKUA was created within a few short months of this in early 1927. CKUA was also the first Canadian radio station on the internet in February 1996. CKUA was and is known for its superior cultural programming. The CBC copied CKUA, and Frank Mankowitz said he modeled NPR after CBC.)
Regardless of the merits of this claim, it doesn't belong where it was, and I have reverted the edit. I can't find any evidence that "the CBC copied CKUA" in the standard history of the CBC, Knowlton Nash's The Microphone Wars. (Indeed, he only mentions CKUA once, in passing, in early introductory material about the pre-CRBC era.) 121a0012 01:51, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] History
This article hasn't got anything much on public broadcasting, barring saying that European countries based their model on the BBC. Now, the BBC went PSB in 1927, however Ireland's PSB broadcaster started as such in January 1926. Can't really say its based on them. I presume there were earlier examples elsewhere? --Kiand 05:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
