The value of public service broadcasting in Japan during Covid-19
JOURNAL
The value of public service broadcasting in Japan during COVID-19 pandemic: An analysis of WTP by Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition
Hisanobu Kakizawa | Telecommunications Policy
2023
The article analyses the shift in willingness to pay (WTP) for public service media (PSM) before and after the first Covid-19 outbreak in Japan. NHK Japan’s public broadcaster offered pay subscriptions to get premium services. Based on the data of the NHK survey WTP estimation was noted. During the pandemic, NHK increased public service educational and medical programmes to combat Covid-19. This led to increased WTP, the satisfaction level of viewers, and the value of journalism. The data also revealed that the WTP for PSM fell slightly as a result of the reduction in sports programmes.
What is life like without the BBC?
REPORT
Deprivation Study: What is life like without the BBC?
MTM
2022
The Deprivation Study set out to uncover the value of BBC to its audience. The study took away all BBC services from 80 households from 16 different locations. Before the study, 30 households neither wanted to pay or receive BBC services, 30 households wanted to pay less of the BBC TV licence, and the last 20 households were happy to pay full licence or more. After nine days without the BBC, results of this study found that 42 of the 60 ‘pay nothing’ and ‘pay less’ households changed their minds and became willing to pay the full licence fee or more. Another 4 households from the ‘pay nothing’ households also changed their stance to at least be willing to the licence but pay less of it. The results reveal that people underestimated the value of the BBC and found that they were elements unique to BBC that led them to feel the licence was worth it. “When households are without the BBC and assess its role and what they missed, the majority re-evaluated the value of the licence fee and what the BBC brings.”
Public Service Broadcasting in the Online TV Environment
JOURNAL
Public Service Broadcasting in the Online Television Environment: The Case for PSB VoD Players and the Role of Policy Focusing on the BBC iPlayer
Maria Michalis | International Journal of Communication
2022
In the era of online TV, this article assesses the main challenges faced by public service broadcasting (PSB). As of yet, the development of BBC iPlayer reveals that online TV has not fundamentally changed PSB, because of the interrelationship between VoD services and tv linear offerings. This article examines how PSB could be revived through personalisation and public service algorithms with the help of online TV.
Public service media in the age of SVoDs
JOURNAL
Public service media in the age of SVoDs: A comparative study of PSM strategic responses in Flanders, Italy and the UK
Alessandro D’Arma, Tim Raats and Jeanette Steemers | Media, Culture & Society Journal
2021
This paper examines the response of public service media to the expansion of streaming services like Netflix and their disruption to established national television models around the world. This paper found that the response of PSM to the disruption caused by giant stream services is due to factors including the country’s governmental support for the role of PSM, and market size. It also found that PSM responds through different strategies one of which is production collaborations.
The Public Service Approach to Recommender Systems
JOURNAL
The Public Service Approach to Recommender Systems: Filtering to Cultivate
Jockum Holden | Television & New Media Journal
2022
The use of algorithms that recommend content to their users has dramatically transformed online media consumption. PSM is catching on and have adopted these algorithms into their own systems to personalise how their online content is distributed. However, since these algorithms cater to a more commercialised recommending system, it could make them incompatible with PSM values, which is to disseminate diverse content. This study gives an in-depth knowledge of how PSM have modified these recommender systems to suit a non-commercial setting.
The Missing Middle: Reimagining a Future for Tweens, Teens, and Public Media
REPORT
The Missing Middle
Reimagining a Future for Tweens, Teens, and Public Media
The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting | Monica Bulger, Mary Madden, Kiley Sobel, Patrick Davison
Published: 2021

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have partnered to better understand how young people are engaging with media today in order to help public media better serve Gen Z. As part of our By/With/For Youth: Inspiring Next Gen Public Media Audiences, we spoke with tweens and teens across the U.S. about how they spend their time, what they find interesting, how they find new shows, apps, or videos, what issues are important to them, as well as what misconceptions adults have about youth. We asked them for their advice about what media producers should do if they want to engage with people their age, and how their lives have changed during the pandemic.
The report features the voices of a generation of youth who crave authenticity and who want to be more than passive consumers in this rapidly changing media landscape. The participating 10-17-year-olds described how they seamlessly move across platforms and devices depending on their moods, interests, and access to certain kinds of connectivity.
[Text sourced from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center]
Covid-TV: Routes to Content during Covid-19
POLICY BRIEF
Covid-TV
Routes to Content during Covid-19
University of Huddersfield | Prof. Catherine Johnson
Published: 2020
What does the impact of Covid-19 on TV viewing tell us about the future of public service broadcasting (PSB) in the UK?
Journalism Thrives in Slovakia Despite Growing Oligarchic Control
REPORT
Journalism Thrives in Slovakia Despite Growing Oligarchic Control
Center for Media, Data and Society | Central European University
Published: May 2020
Slovaks have access to a plethora of news platforms, but many of them are in the hands of powerful financial corporations, closely linked with political groups. Nevertheless, swelling demand for accurate, quality information boosts the country’s independent journalism.
Slovakia is a voracious news consumer, with almost two thirds of people reading news portals, newspapers or news magazines. Much of this news appetite was stirred by technological advancement. Over 86% of people use the internet, which is a big leap from less than 30% in the beginning of the 2010s…
Text sourced from CMDS | CEU
Small Screen: Big Debate
WEBSITE
Small Screen: Big Debate
Ofcom
2020
Join the conversation on the future of public service broadcasting in the UK
This website will allow you to access a wide variety of research, learn more of our work in this area and submit your views directly to us on the future of public service broadcasting and media.
Routes to Content: how people decide what TV to watch
REPORT
Routes to Content: how people decide what TV to watch
With more than half of UK households owning an internet-connected TV and subscribed to at least one SVOD, this article sought to analyse how people discover and decide what television to watch and explore just how accessible public service television is.
“The contemporary media landscape has altered the discoverability of television content. More than half of UK households have a TV set connected to the internet and subscribe to at least one subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service, multiplying the routes that people can take to find the television programmes that they want to watch.
For the television industry, this means adopting new strategies to increase the discoverability and accessibility of their content. For regulators and policymakers, this challenges existing prominence legislation that aims to ensure that public service content is easy to find. Current prominence regulations were designed for the world of linear television channels and electronic programme guides, raising the question of how accessible public service television is in the new on-demand environment.”