ABSTRACT
In the mid- to late twentieth century, a range of institutionalized settlements for broadcasting were established around the world. These set out rules for relationships between broadcasters and the State, the number of broadcasters, licence conditions and geographical scope. In doing so, they determined, to a great extent, the potential share of the broadcasting audience and revenue enjoyed by various broadcasters. We can identify three main approaches: In the US and most Central and South American media systems, the broadcasts with the largest share of audience were aired by private corporations with some rather weak legal requirements to serve the public interest in return for privileged distribution. In Western Europe and some similar markets such as Japan, Canada and Australia, public policy has consistently supported the provision of large-scale public service broadcasting (PSB) with support from public funding and distribution privileges. In non-democratic societies such as China, broadcasters – whilst funded by advertising – remain part of the State and enjoy distribution monopolies or near monopolies. There are many hybrids, developmental trajectories and transition cases between these three fundamental types of broadcasting systems.
