In the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

, the term public service broadcasting (PSB) refers to broadcasting intended for public benefit rather than to serve purely commercial interests. The communications regulator

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...

requires that certain television and radio broadcasters fulfil certain requirements as part of their license to broadcast. All of the television and radio stations have a public service remit, including those that broadcast digitally.

History

The

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

, whose broadcasting in the UK is funded by a licence fee and does not sell advertising time, is most notable for being the first public service broadcaster in the UK. Its first director general, Lord Reith introduced many of the concepts that would later define public service broadcasting in the UK when he adopted the mission to "''inform, educate and entertain''". With the launch of the first commercial broadcaster

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

in 1955, the government required that the local franchises fulfilled a similar obligation, mandating a certain level of local news coverage, arts and religious programming, in return for the right to broadcast. The next commercial television broadcasters in the UK, the state-owned

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

and

S4C S4C (, ''Sianel Pedwar Cymru'', meaning ''Channel Four Wales'') is a Welsh language free-to-air public broadcast television channel. Launched on 1 November 1982, it was the first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speaking ...

, were set up by the government in 1981 to provide different forms of public broadcasting.

was required to be a public service alternative to the

and to cater for minorities and arts.

was to be a mainly

Welsh language Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic language family, Celtic language of the Brittonic languages, Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, and in Y Wladfa (the Welsh colony in Chubut P ...

programmer. Neither was required to be commercially successful as

was subsidised by the

network and

received a grant from the central government. However,

was later restructured under the

Broadcasting Act 1990 The Broadcasting Act 1990 is a law of the British parliament, initiated in part due to a 1989 European Council Directive (89/552), also known as the Television Without Frontiers directive. The aim of the Act was to liberalise and deregulate the B ...

to be a state owned corporation that is self-financing and from 2013 the

took over funding for S4C. When the final analogue terrestrial broadcaster, Channel 5, was launched in 1997 it too was given a number of public service requirements. These included the obligation to provide minimum amounts of programming from various genres, minimum amounts of programming originally commissioned by the channel and of European origin, and maximum limits on the number of repeats.

Future viability

The advent of digital age has brought about many questions about the future of public service broadcasting in the UK. The

has been criticised by some for being expansionist and exceeding its public service remit by providing content that could be provided by commercial broadcasters. They argue that the

can distort the market, making it difficult for commercial providers to operate. A notable example of this is the Internet services provided by the

. However, those who defend the

suggest that the

needs to provide new services and entertainment, to remain relevant in the digital age .

has been attempting to significantly reduce its obligations to produce and broadcast unprofitable public service programming, citing the increased competition from digital and multichannel television. Similarly,

has projected a £100m funding gap if it is to continue with public service broadcasting after digital switch-over. ,

had been consulting on what direction public service broadcasting should take in the future.– The Ofcom Review of Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) Television

References

External links

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
nbsp;– Official site
The BBC and the future of Public Service Broadcasting
(archived fro
the original
on 23 Jun 2009).
Channel 4 Television
nbsp;– Official site {{DEFAULTSORT:Public Service Broadcasting In The United Kingdom Television in the United Kingdom

History

Future viability

See also

References

Further reading

External links