Regional Television in Europe

Abstract

The majority of European administrations have been undergoing a so-called process of regionalization which has led particularly to the regionalization of public television. There are some European countries whose public television has traditionally been based on regionalized broadcasting systems because of linguistic criteria (Belgium and Switzerland) or political criteria (the German Länder and Spanish Autonomous Communities). During the 1980s, this process coincided with the development of private TV stations in Europe, which multiplied the number of national and local TV channels. Thus, the process of regionalization has decelerated and even some regional public television systems have changed their regional television policies and tried to reduce expenses by centralizing their networks.