Marriage of convenience? Public service broadcasters’ cross-national partnerships in factual television

Abstract

This article explores how public service broadcasters (PSBs) in Europe form cross-national partnerships to secure factual television programming and develop new television channels in response to globalization and transformations within the media sector. The article’s main case study is the BBC/Discovery partnership — the most extensive formal agreement in international television history for factual television. This partnership serves as a case to explore the feasibility of such collaborations for other PSBs in Europe. In doing so, two different regional partnership models emerge: the Nordic public—public model and the model adopted by PSBs in German-speaking Europe that mixes the Nordic and the BBC’s Anglo-American approach. While the BBC/Discovery partnership is unique in scale and global impact due to Discovery’s financial weight, and the BBC’s production experience and position in the programming market, as well as the partners’ linguistic advantage, the two other models exemplify the possibilities for less wealthy European PSBs in smaller linguistic markets.