Karen Donders

Mergers and acquisitions in TV broadcasting and distribution

M&A activity in TV broadcasting and distribution industries is heating up.Consolidation wave produces global powerhouses that control entire TV value chain.Competition policy has imposed behavioural and structural remedies.Industrial and media-specific policies are virtually absent from policy agendas.Call for a more integrated policy approach towards M&A in TV markets. This article focuses on the recent wave of M&A activity, both vertical and horizontal, in TV broadcasting and distribution industries, and discusses the implications of M&A activity for competition, industrial and media policymaking. Moreover, it aspires to set a forward-looking perspective on the regulation of M&A in the TV industry. It is argued that while EU competition policy has difficulties to fully grasp anti-competitive effects resulting from vertical M&A activity in particular, industrial and media-specific policies dealing with the creation of an economically and culturally sustainable, European broadcasting and distribution sector are virtually absent from national and European policy agendas. It is particular in the latter two domains of policymaking that policy action is necessary.

Of discourses, stakeholders and advocacy coalitions in media policy: Tracing negotiations towards the new management contract of Flemish public broadcaster VRT

Taking the run-up to the 2012–2016 management contract between Flemish public service broadcaster VRT and the Flemish government as a case study, this article analyses the role of the digital technology argument in debates and negotiations regarding the position of public service broadcasting (PSB) in the era of media convergence. It discusses the outcome of the 2011 contract negotiations as the result of the relative position and impact of different actors by means of a stakeholder analysis and advocacy coalition framework. Results suggest, first, that beneath surface discussions about PSB and new media are economic arguments and logics. They show, second, that two advocacy coalitions can be identified and that the negotiations’ outcome reflects a rupture of ties in the advocacy coalition between right-wing political parties and private media companies, favouring a market failure perspective, to the benefit of the advocacy coalition promoting the social responsibility perspective, reflected in the eventual 2012–2016 management contract.

Analysing national practices after European state aid control: are multi-stakeholder negotiations beneficial for public service broadcasting?

This article analyses the increasing emphasis on multi-stakeholder approaches in the development of public broadcasting policies. The European Commission, in particular, reinforces this trend, having pointed to the necessity of ‘third parties’ being involved in procedures that allow public broadcasters to expand activities to new media markets. The article’s research question is twofold. First, what type of multi-stakeholder approach has been advocated for by the Commission? Second, are multi-stakeholder approaches, implemented by Member States after an encounter with the Commission, adding to more democratic (understood as more inclusive) decision-making on public service broadcasting or, rather, simply providing an additional forum for private sector interests? Evidence derives from two case studies in the Netherlands and Flanders, where some form of ex ante evaluation has been developed and a multi-stakeholder consultation has been set up in preparation for management contract renewals. Findings show that the newly developed multi-stakeholder policy practices are far from inclusive and fail to meet several aspects of deliberative democracy. Essentially, they have been created in response to market pressures (and, hence, over-focus on market questions) and rarely take as their starting point the improvement of public service broadcasting as a democratic policy project.

Introduction: European Media Policy as a Complex Maze of Actors, Regulatory Instruments and Interests

Everybody agrees on the mounting relevance of European media policy, also referred to as European audiovisual and media policy. By this we do not mean the individual media policies of the separate member states of the European Union (EU) but rather media policies elaborated at the level of the EU. Admittedly, these policies are developed in close collaboration with the member states. As can be read on the European Commission’s (EC’s) website,1 European media policy is implemented by the EC in four ways. First, there is the harmonization of rules applicable to audiovisual media services. These rules are part of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (a 2007 amended version of the 1989 Television without Frontiers Directive), which is transposed into over 28 national and subnational jurisdictions. Their main objective is to achieve an internal market in audiovisual media services while protecting the interests of minors and enforcing public interest objectives, such as diversity and quality. Technical standardization alsof Alls under these objectives of creating an internal market for communcation and information technologies, infrastructure and devices. Second, there are media-specific programs to stimulate the production and distribution of audiovisual media services. The industrial support program MEDIA, which is designed to add to the professionalization of the film and television industries, is the most important support program. Third, the EC formulates policies on media literacy and media pluralism.

Editors’ Introduction: Private Television in Europe — A New Beginning or the Beginning of the End?

In 1984, pay-television channel Canal+ was launched in France; in 1986, free-to-air channels M6 and La Cinq started broadcasting. On 16 January 1985, President of the French Republic Francois Mitterand announced his willingness to privatise TF1, the biggest public service television station in France (Dyson, 1990: 133). Several elements accounted for the liberalisation of the French television market and the president’s pronouncement on private television. Indeed, whereas there was no intent to abandon the system of public broadcasting altogether and to relinquish the substantive advertising revenues that financed it, the French were in general favouring private television. Public television was considered overly dull (Donders, 2012: 12; Van Den Bulck, 2007: 65-74), whereas private television — perhaps now suffering from a conservative image — represented something fresh and new for French audiences and those elsewhere in Western Europe. Also, personal relations between French elite political classes and those seeking profit in private television pushed for an opening of French television to market forces. Having said that, there were also many fears about the possible excesses of the, sometimes alleged, inferior, trashy and merely entertaining programming of private television.

Decline and fall of public service media values in the international content acquisition market: An analysis of small public broadcasters acquiring BBC Worldwide content

Taking the case of the relationship between small European public broadcasters and the international content sales activities of BBC Worldwide, this contribution analyses if and to what extent the commercial arm of public service media institution BBC is strengthening the hegemonic position of Anglo-Saxon content in European media markets, and undermining the objectives public broadcasters stand for. To this end, it takes a comparative approach, combining and triangulating results from analysis of relevant documents, from BBC Worldwide and from public broadcasters that acquire their programmes, with data from semi-structured expert interviews with representatives from small European public broadcasters’ acquisition departments. Results indicate that, despite its public service claims, BBC Worldwide is an international content distributor like any other and that its activities contribute to cultural homogenization of audiovisual content in Europe, thus limiting small European public broadcasters’ possibilities for content universality, creativity, diversity and quality.

From Public Service Media Organisations to De-centralised Public Service for the Media Sector: A Comparative Analysis of Opportunities and Disadvantages

Ideas on plurality and competition in public broadcasting delivery have re-surfaced in discussions on the future of public surface media (PSM) on regular occasions in different geographical settings since the 1980s. This article analyses several of the debates on distributed public service, critically evaluating whether governments across Europe would indeed be “better off” should they choose a distributed and de-centralised model of public service media. The article, firstly, investigates which arguments have been made in order to make the case for a distributed PSM model. On the basis of these insights, a typology of different forms of distributed public service delivery is then developed. Setting out from this typology, policy plans and actual practices of de-centralised PSM are being analysed. Findings in the four case studies (the United Kingdom, Flanders, the Netherlands, and New Zealand) are based on a combination of secondary literature, a qualitative document analysis, desk research and semi-structured expert interviews. The article concludes that distributed public service is as much a normative idea as the centralised public broadcasting project, that distributed public service as a policy solution lacks a clearly defined policy problem and, moreover, that there is, given the variety of media systems, not one distributed model that would fit all.

Government Intervention in Marriages of Convenience Between TV Broadcasters and Distributors

Abstract Albeit largely neglected in communication sciences research, industrial convergence has put the relation between legacy content media like TV broadcasters and distributors (cable, satellite) firmly on the policy agenda. There seems to be an increasing awareness of the gatekeeping characteristics of mainstream as well as online video distribution, and the power distributors can exert vis-à-vis television broadcasters in terms of the bundling of services and pricing. The relation between TV broadcasters and distributors is increasingly characterised by conflicts. Because of public disputes between broadcasters and distributors, and threats of blackout, several governments across Europe are indeed discussing the necessity of regulatory intervention in order to decrease tension and promote cooperation in their media sectors. The article therefore questions how broadcasters have problematised their relation with distributors and put it on the policy agenda, whether it is up to governments to intervene in the relationship between broadcasters and distributors, and whether the proposed policy actions are likely to remedy the tensions in the marketplace.

Moving beyond the Borders of Top–Down Broadcasting An Analysis of Younger Users’ Participation in Public Service Media

This article analyzes whether and to what extent public broadcasters have been able to transpose concepts like interaction, cocreation, and participation into actual media service delivery. The article theoretically frames this discussion, first, by defining and operationalizing interaction with, cocreation of, and participation in public service media (PSM), focusing mainly on participation, and, second, by analyzing the challenges that emerge from these concepts. Subsequently, a comparative case study analysis is conducted. Included in the analysis are three PSM multiplatform projects targeted at younger users: that is, TV Lab (France Télévisions), Carte Blanche (VRT, Flanders), and BNN University (NPO, the Netherlands). Findings are based on a qualitative document analysis and semistructured interviews with both producers of and participants in these multiplatform projects.

Cultural Diversity and State Aid to Public Service Media

Many values characterise the policy project of public service media (PSM). Universality, quality, distinctiveness, innovation, identity, diversity and pluralism are among the most common. Identity and diversity might be considered to be somewhat antagonistic. Indeed, whereas the identity building aspect of PSM largely refers to a process of unification around a nation, language and/or culture, the diversity aspect is centrally concerned with the task of reflecting the ever increasing fragmentation within nation states on the one hand and the diversity of cultures globally on the other.