Page 121 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

110 COMMUNICATION AND CITIZENSHIP

complex, but precarious, federal structure which has restrained the
broadcasters.
But already, neo-liberal economists are criticizing this regulatory
framework for being bureaucratic and offering only ‘loopholes’, but not
a truly liberalized broadcasting market. In particular, it is argued that the
broadcasting market is distorted because of the remaining public-service
obligations of the private broadcasters and the licence-fee-supported
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broadcasting sector. The licensing decisions of the authorities have
narrowed organizational diversity as they have restricted market entry,
especially as at the end of a long licence period the same broadcaster
will probably have its licence renewed. Market choice is being
narrowed beyond the desired level by strong concentration tendencies;
and the ideal of a pluralist federal broadcasting landscape, which had
inspired so much of the original broadcasting legislation, is crumbling
in the face of increasingly pragmatic regulation.
On the other hand, many of the attempts by the legislators and
regulatory authorities to create positive, enabling regulation, in order to
allow a diversity of programme output as demanded by the
Constitutional Court, have failed because editorial pluralism cannot
simply be created through a structure based on external pluralism. The
root of the problem is the conceptual incompatibility between the
constitutional principle of pluralism, which aims at the socio-political
effects of broadcast content, and the economics of market-led forces.
Not only has external pluralism been scaled down in organizational
terms, but broadcasting in general and television in particular, whose
resource demands only allow marginal organizational diversity, is
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increasingly restricted to providing entertainment. With a few
exceptions, private broadcasting is essentially non-political, and follows
a middle-of-the-road programming philosophy designed to appeal to as
many viewers and listeners as possible. At the same time, the public
broadcasters have narrowed the range of their programmes under the
competitive pressures for ratings, the increased costs of rights to films
and sports events and the politically conditioned financial restraints on
the size of the licence fee.
This process is taking place, despite the caution of the Federal
Constitutional Court and the intentions of the politicians and the
regulatory authorities to create a series of positive, enabling regimes. To
audiences, the German broadcasting system begins to look increasingly
like those in the USA, Italy and France. Although these countries all
have different regulatory approaches, the differences are only
superficial compared with the developing structure of the international