Page 61 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

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Comparing Media Systems

in every country in Western Europe and North America except the small-
est (e.g., Luxembourg), and in most countries has until recently been the
only or the primary form of broadcasting. There has, of course, been a
strong shift toward commercial broadcasting in recent years, but public
service broadcasting remains quite significant in most of the countries
in this study. Table 2.4 shows funding revenues for public broadcasting
systems both per capita and as a percent of GDP, the percent of those
revenues that come from advertising and other commercial sources, and
the percent of the television audience captured by public service broad-
casting in 2000. In only one of the European countries covered here does
the audience share of public service broadcasting fall below 20 percent,
and in most cases it is in the range of 30 to 50 percent – in contrast to
9 percent in Canada and 2 percent in the United States. Funding levels are
also much higher in Europe than in the United States. The purity of pub-
lic broadcasting systems, in the sense of their dependence on commercial
revenue, on the other hand, varies considerably within Europe.
Publicbroadcastinghasbeenthemostimportantformofstateowner-
ship of media (in most countries the state until recently also ran the tele-
communication infrastructure). However, in many countries the state
has also owned news agencies, newspapers, or other media-related enter-
prises, either directly or through state-owned enterprises. Press subsidies
have also been present in most of the countries covered here, and have
played an important role in many. These can be direct or indirect (e.g.,
reduced postal, telecommunication, or VAT rates), and can be directed
either at news organizations or at individual journalists (e.g., in the form
5
of reduced tax rates or fares on public transport). The state, and in many
casesstate-ownedenterprises,arealsoadvertisers,inmanycasesveryim-
portant ones. Subsidies for the film industry are also very common.
Other forms of state intervention include:

Libel, defamation, privacy, and right-of-reply laws;
Hate speech laws;

Professionalsecrecylawsforjournalists(protectingtheconfidential-

ity of sources) and “conscience laws” (protecting journalists when
the political line of their paper changes);

5 Picard (1984) summarizes the basic forms of state financial intervention in the news-
paper industry. He also attempts a ranking of countries in terms of such intervention,
but not very successfully, as his ranking only takes into account the presence or absence
of a particular kind of state support, not its magnitude or the policy governing its al-
location (which may or may not, for instance, allow authorities discretion to reward
or punish particular papers for their political support or opposition).

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