Plurality and Public Service Broadcasting: Why and How PSBs Deserve Protection

One of the more neglected areas in discussions (and literature) on plurality is the potential and actual contribution of public service broadcasting (PSB). While supporters of PSB argue that it represents an essential intervention and wholly positive contribution to a more pluralistic media ecology, critics (mostly from private sector competitors) counter with two interlinked objections: first, that by their very nature public service broadcasters offer only a homogeneous and centrally dictated news agenda; and second, that this public intervention either potentially or actually distorts the media market and thus in fact serves to suppress diversity. Moreover, it is argued that in some countries with less developed democratic cultures, public funding is more likely to render such broadcasters more susceptible to state or elite pressure, thereby narrowing the potential for greater pluralism still further.