How and Why should a Public Service Broadcaster Compete?

Reflections on the role of public service broadcasting, especially its relation with other broadcasters in the news and information ecosystem

Sep 13, 2023

Hello Dear,

Have you been reading One Doubt Please? Yes, that is the name of this #NotJust email newsletter. I love to think, read, write, question, discuss and share ideas, you know. In fact, I wish I could perhaps do just that and nothing else in my life. Through the articles in this newsletter, it is my humble aspiration to share some of my reflections on various aspects of our shared existence. And thus, hopefully ignite some inspiration in you too.

So, do check out the posts. If you think they would be of some value, you can subscribe to the newsletter, for free.

Ok, for today, I would encourage you to join me in some reflections on the role of public service broadcasting, known otherwise as public broadcasting. Why discuss this? How and why does it matter?

Briefly, public service broadcasting is meant to be a public good. It is and must be a public service. For this reason alone, it should concern all of us. Right? Two, if it is indeed a public good, how to realize this aspiration becomes an infinite mission, a never-ending goal. And as responsible citizens, I believe each one of us must be able to play a role in contributing to this mission.

And to be able to do this, I believe it is essential that we have the right perspective, or rather a less wrong point of view, on why public service broadcasting exists, and how and what it is meant to be.

So, that is my aim here. To present a perspective which I believe is at least less wrong or more right, than what appears to be the popular view. Indeed, like all my reflections, I do not claim these to be necessarily so; I could indeed be mistaken, even grossly. However, I think it is better to be profoundly and deeply wrong than to be superficially and shallowly right. Why do I think so? For one, I believe it is better to be deep than shallow. Two, I think the path to deep and right is shorter if we start from deep and wrong, than from shallow and right, provided we are also open to change and correction.

It is #NotJust in this spirit that I share this and other reflections: based on some thought, in the faith that it has some value, yet open to refinement, even wholesale reversal (I hope).

Ok, so let us get to it, but before that, I must add that my interest in public service broadcasting comes also from the fact that being an officer of the Indian Information Service (IIS), I happen to belong to the public communications profession. Moreover, over the years, close to half of the total number of serving IIS officers have been responsible for leading the operations of the news divisions of India’s public broadcasters, namely Doordarshan and Akashvani (erstwhile All India Radio).

Fine then. We begin with what might seem to be a rather irrelevant question, maybe even one with an obvious answer. [This is one type of questions which I love, those which sound foolish and obvious. Learn why here].

Should Every Public Broadcasting Professional Watch News?

I have often heard this view that if you are in the profession of public broadcasting, i.e., if you as an individual are working in a public broadcasting organization, then you have no choice but to watch news broadcasted by other organizations, mainly private news organizations.

I have however not been convinced that being in "the news business" makes it necessary that we watch news [my dear friend and fellow IIS officer Rajith pointed out to me once that we are not in the news business, it is news service that we provide] . In fact, I think it can very well stand in the way of our ability to provide better news services.

Why do I think and say so? In part, because of the nowism - the morbid and often mindless focus on the here and now - which characterizes most news we get today, especially those broadcasted by private news channels. Most news channels have also adopted the paradigm of news as entertainment, with profound consequences for our politics, governance, society and our shared public life.

It is my contention that even as we focus on the present, every organization should also have enough of its people and their mental and spiritual energies looking outward into the future as well. We should not and cannot afford to let the urgent eat away the important, which I believe is an increasingly common phenomenon in many institutions, maybe even in our personal lives.

I understand however that this argument against everyone in a public broadcasting organization having to watch news is so far a rather weak one. In fact, this is not the main question we would like to explore today. We come to that now, and in doing so, we hope that the above argument too gets stronger.

The Question of Competition for A Public Service Broadcaster

Here is one argument I have heard, as to why someone working in a public service broadcasting organization should watch news channels. “First of all, you must know what does and does not make news....you need to understand what is of interest to the audience and what is the best way to deliver news to your audience. And as for watching news channels, if you are in the business of news, then you need to be abreast of what your competitors are doing and be better or at least equally good as them to be in the business or we will go bankrupt of audience in a few years…”.

The above argument raises many questions, in my humble opinion. To explain my perspective, let me share a small message I had sent to some of my colleagues.

[Given below is a slightly edited version of a message I had sent to some colleagues, in October 2022]

1) Yes, I do find some merit in the argument that we need to know what does and does not make news. However, I find this as a double-edged sword.

1a) Knowing this too well and falling in love with the news logic might make us dance to its tunes. We may end up playing to the wrong gallery - in guiding our professional conduct by the principles of the news ecosystem, even when the ecosystem is broken. (Two simple and simplistic examples: promoting meaningless hate-spewing chatterboxes to please polarized and polarizable audiences, promoting "all is well" sycophantic alternate realities to please insecure bosses).

1b) Knowing this (or anything) too well can also hinder innovation; learn the rules too well, and our capacity to break the rules, to question dogma, becomes severely limited. This is another sense in which ignorance is more precious than knowledge.

1c) In other words:

Knowing and accepting what makes news can prevent us from asking the normative and more important question of what should make news. If we don't have a point of view on this, how are we going to reinvent or rediscover the profession?

2) Coming to the question of what is of interest to the audience, yes, it would help to know this (though here again, knowledge is both empowering and debilitating, as pointed out above).

2a) But then, what is our role? Is it to merely feed the public what they are or would be interested in? Aren't our or the public's "interests" guided more by our lower nature (and its desires for immediate gratification) rather than by our higher nature (such as what will enlighten our soul and will benefit us in the long term)? Isn't a big part of the problem in the current news and information ecosystem nothing but this craving of audiences for titillation, amusement and entertainment on the one hand and the clamour of publishers / broadcasters to capture eyeballs, impressions and clicks on the other?

2b) To recall Neil Postman:

Who can be appalled when the coin of the realm in public discourse is not experience, thoughtfulness or diplomacy but the ability to amuse – no matter how maddening or revolting the amusement? An Orwellian world is much easier to recognize, and to oppose, than a Huxleyan. Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to close around us … [but] who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements?

Read more here.

Let me also take this opportunity to recommend Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death (I have read this, and am rereading this now).

2c) In other words, should not our news stand for a certain belief system, on what the audience should be interested in? Or rather, what they should pay their precious attention to, even if it is boring and does not interest them? Should not our news be an invitation to embrace this higher calling, where audiences join our mission and listen to our news since they share our belief in what they and we need to pay attention to, even if it should be the absolutely boring truth; rather than they coming to us since we provide them a temporary escape from the reality which makes their life difficult?

3) And when we talk of public service broadcasters like Doordarshan or Akashvani, I would think that this responsibility becomes magnified many times over.

3a) Why should Doordarshan or Akashvani be better or equally good as its competitors? I don't think so. On the other hand, I would submit the following.

The calling for any public broadcaster is to be different, rather than better. Or rather, being better by being different, not by being better at the game than our "competitors".

3b) Who are our competitors, after all? Yes, everyone else too competes for the finite attention of the public mind. But that apart, who is a competitor?

Rather than seek to attract more and more audiences to itself, (I think) a public broadcaster should lead its audiences to other good news sources, whenever and wherever they serve the public good.

And this is something which should form a part of the barometer for measuring the success of a public service broadcaster.

If a public service broadcaster is most highly viewed, it is in a sense a testament to the failure of the larger news ecosystem, which the public broadcaster should be shaping towards public good.

So, what does this mean? That a public broadcaster should rather have no one watching it? No, absolutely not. Rather, the ideal, in my view, is that the public broadcaster plays a leading and shaping role, where it inspires everyone - both news organizations as well as others including individuals - to share news and information which is in the public good. In this sense, rather than being one of the few providers, let alone the primary or sole purveyor, of public service broadcasting, the public service broadcaster is called upon to increase the quantity and diversity of good-quality news and information content in our shared public sphere.

In other words, one of the roles of a public service broadcaster can be regarded as that of reducing “market concentration”, of diffusing the supply of the information commons more widely, of increasing competition, in fact! Wow, this precise thought occurred to me just now, while writing this.😊And we could use some measure of market concentration to measure how well the public broadcaster is able to do this. Herfindahl-Hirschman Index is one such measure.

3c) Secondly, why does a public service broadcaster exist? Isn't it precisely to make up for market failures? To provide what the news media market is not able or willing to provide? So, I think a public service broadcaster in this sense should be a creative contrarian. It should not watch its "competitors" to imitate or better them, rather it should flow against the tide and provide and invite precious attention to issues, people and events which no one talks about, which no one is concerned about but should be concerned about.

In this sense, if every single news channel and newspaper is doing all it can to speak about, let us say, an event of a top official, what is the merit in a public service broadcaster too speaking of it? Aren't we just adding to the clutter, unless we are highlighting something about the event which few others are caring to take note of? A public broadcaster’s mission must be better served by talking of the plight of manual scavengers, for instance?

4) As a consolation for enduring my message, let me (re)share a nice essay on public broadcasting - tracing its origin, growth, decline; making a case for its reinvention; and asserting its enduring and unique value. Read it here.

5) And now, to undo the consolation, let me inflict upon you below a small piece of reflection on public broadcasting I wrote four years ago.

[End of the slightly edited version of a message I had sent to some colleagues, in October 2022]

Well, there we go, I hope the above reflection clarifies some of the loose ends and incomplete arguments we started with. Now, if you read the above closely, you would observe that there is a little contradiction between the arguments made in point 3c) (making up for market failures) and in point 3b (shaping and leading the market, so to say). In reading and exploration I undertook after writing the above message, I got the fortune to learn about the arguments on this aspect, put forth by Mariana Mazzucato, Professor, University College of London and Director of UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. Here is what Mazzucato says:

Rather than analysing public sector investment via the need to correct ‘market failures’, it is necessary to build a theory of how the public sector shapes and creates markets —as it has done in the history of the IT revolution. Indeed, the BBC is a perfect example of an organization that by remaining ahead of the game, investing in its own competencies and capabilities, has been able to steer, shape and create new market landscapes and indeed opportunities for both public and private actors.

One Doubt Please

How and Why should a Public Service Broadcaster Compete?

Reflections on the role of public service broadcasting, especially its relation with other broadcasters in the news and information ecosystem

Should Every Public Broadcasting Professional Watch News?

The Question of Competition for A Public Service Broadcaster

Discussion about this post