Page 62 - Communication Theory and Research

McQuail(EJC)-3281-04.qxd 8/16/2005 6:29 PM Page 49

The Inflow of American Television Fiction on European Broadcasting 49

Public vs commercial channels

[...]
Our research shows that 67 percent of the films and 76 percent of the series on the
German commercial channels are of American origin. This is well over 78 percent of
the broadcasting time, devoted to fiction. Also with respect to the total broadcasting
time (all programme categories together), the share of US programmes is still 52
percent. Is this the good example to which the Commission refers?
By no means do we dispute that the ‘new’ character of a channel, as the
Commission puts it, is not beneficial to the share of European programmes. In
the first months, or rather the first years of its existence, a new channel attempts
to consolidate the home audience rapidly by a high level of imports and strip
scheduling. Over time and once the station is established within its home
market, it may begin to move towards domestic and European production
(Commission of the European Communities, 1998: 53; De Bens et al., 1992: 77–8).
But we do dispute the fact that the distinction between public and commercial
channels is not at all relevant. Even the results of the Commission prove the
opposite: the list of channels not achieving a majority of European works in
1995–6 does not include one public channel (Commission of the European
Communities, 1998: 71–4).
Our own findings clearly confirm the distinction between public and
commercial channels. Loyal to their assignment to provide a wide and balanced
range of entertainment and informational programmes, public channels clearly
devote more broadcasting time to programme genres such as information,
education, sports and culture while commercial channels concentrate foremost
on fiction. With regard to fiction, public channels offer a wider range of national
and European fiction while commercial channels programme predominantly
American fiction. Dupagne and Waterman (1998) examined the relation between
the share of commercial channels in a country and the share of US import and
found a clearly positive correlation: the more commercial channels in acountry,
the larger the share of US import. This leads them to conclude:

... that political decisions to permit commercial television stations to operate
in Western Europe may be a more important factor in determining the
tendency to import US programs than economic or linguistic considerations.
(Dupagne and Waterman, 1998: 216)

Conclusion

Television is mainly and increasingly a medium for entertainment, especially
fiction. Fiction content is dominated by American films and home-made series,
spread over an interminable number of episodes and modelled after American
and Australian examples. Our investigation shows that this tendency is
especially perceivable among the sharply increased number of commercial
channels. It is true that public channels are dragged into the competition battle,