The Politics of Public Broadcasting in Britain and Japan: The BBC and NHK Compared

The BBC and NHK have dominated their national media systems since the 1920s and still play a central role in shaping political, social and cultural life. Both are highly trusted news organizations, and vitally influence national identity. Yet despite remarkably similar organizational and funding structures, they differ in their editorial autonomy, relationship to the state, and in the social and cultural roles they play. While the BBC, proud of its independence, acts as a watchdog on the powerful, NHK prefers a guide dog role cooperating with rather than confronting political elites. The BBC is also more willing to challenge prevailing social norms, often serving as an agent of social change. NHK prefers to avoid controversy, serving as an agent of social stability. The book argues that these differences were shaped by decades of conflict and cooperation between broadcasters, governments, commercial media, interest groups and audiences. The broadcasters adopted distinctive editorial strategies to retain public support and elite approval in the face of technological upheaval, hostility from commercial rivals, and continuous political interference. Both, however, continue to uphold the belief that democratic and social goals are better served by public rather than commercial media.

Review of: The Politics of Public Broadcasting in Britain and Japan: The BBC and NHK Compared, Henry Laurence (2023) London and New York: Routledge, 236 pp., ISBN 978-1-03231-038-1, h/bk, USD 170.00

Natural history programming is one of the mainstays of 'flagship' broadcasting in Britain. From thie geographically expansive documentary series of the 1950s to recent forays into interactive television, the BBC has promoted the genre as justification of the licence fee. This article examines The Blue Planet (200 l), focusing on the role of aesthetics in the quality television debate. Combining close analyses of the programme with data collected during a public screening of highlights fronm the series in 1--hyde Park, London (2002), -[he article proposes that: The Blue Planet's visual arid aural splendour has been figured as an integral part of the public service that it provides. In order to situate this argument within the ongoing debate about quality television and public service broadcasting, this article draws oil earlier critical discussions of heritage television. It is concluded that flagship television is antithetical to the notion of quality television if we reintrodutice the concept of 'flow' into the debate.

The article views and analyzes the early period of the nationwide television broadcasting in Japan (from the mid 1920s to the end of the 1960s). Previously, this problem has not been a subject of research in Russian oriental studies, and taking into account the operation of established television broadcasting system in modern Japan, it seems necessary to identify the features of the genesis and evolution of the nationwide television broadcasting in Japan at its earliest stage, using both historical-genetic and problem-chronological methods. Based mainly on the media history research of Japanese media historians, which are introduced into the Russian scientific community for the first time, the stages of the genesis and nationwide spread of television broadcasting in Japan are consistently identified: the pre-war period of experimental broadcasting, the reform of the media sphere during and after the occupation of Japan by the GHQ, the origins of the integrated system of Japanese public and commercial television broadcasting nigen taisei. In addition, the author concludes that television played an important role in the process of spreading Western values of democracy, as well as the renewed values of the nuclear family institution in Japan, which were declared by the GHQ, US occupation authorities. Based on the results of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that the fundamental foundations of the modern multifaceted and original culture of Japanese television, as well as the model of broadcasting companies’ interaction: competition and coexistence of public and commercial television broadcasting, were laid precisely in the key period for the history of Japanese television ‒ the 1950‒1960s. The findings of this research can serve as a basis for studying the next stages in the evolution of television broadcasting in Japan up to the present period. This paper is aimed at orientalists, students of similar specialties, as well as a wide range of people interested in the history of Japanese media. Keywords: Japan, media history, television history, television in Japan, nationwide broadcasting

British broadcasting has been described as “possibly the greatest single system of diverse, quality communication the world has ever seen” (Tracey, 1998: viii). Its defining public service character is exemplified above all in the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the broadcasting philosophy of its first Director General, John Reith. Yet since the launch of the BBC itself, the idea of a public service ethos in broadcasting has raised profound questions about the purpose and function of the mass media; the nature of the audience and the limits of the market; and public value, private interest and the relationship between private and public culture in society. What do we mean by ‘public service broadcasting’? On one level, it is simply aparticular means of organizing a particular technology of mass communication in order to facilitate certain outcomes. However, the public service ethos is also an attitude of mind, a way of thinking about the role of broadcasting within a society. Characteristics of public service broadcasting typically cited include universality of access; diversity, distinctiveness and quality of program content; serving of minority as well as majority interests; freedom from commercial pressures through public financing and from political interference through independent oversight; public accountability; impartiality; and a commitment to innovation (Tracey, 1998: 26-32; Debrett, 2009: 808-13; Hendy, 2013: 3). Public service broadcasting is also seen as having a nationalizing function, reflecting national culture and identity and defining the boundaries of what constitutes the “national community” (Born, 2005: 512). National media systems are social institutions, and the nature and extent of apublic service ethos within a country’s media system is contingent historically on the technologies it employs and the society within which it is situated. Any discussion of the history of public service broadcasting in Britain therefore has to accommodate social, political, cultural and technological change as well as changing definitions of public service, the public interest and the public good over time. It has also to recognize the extent to which public service broadcasting has always representedsomething beyond broadcasting itself. The public service ethos in broadcasting has been variously described as a “moral system” (Tracey, 1998: xvi), a “mission” (Hendy, 2013: 6), “a class of special pleading” (North, 2007: 34) or akin to “creationism” (Murdoch, 2009: 4). At its best, public service broadcasting has been seen as the essential expression of the democratic public sphere; at its worst, as the embodiment of an anti-market and elitist cultural hegemony. To Reith himself, broadcasting put us “in touch with the infinite” (Reith, 1924: 217). Yet the ‘Reithian legacy’ itself is a term often used to justify historical developments that have strayed far from Reith’s original philosophy of broadcasting. This chapter traces the origins of the idea of public service broadcasting in Britainfrom Reith’s original vision of the role and function of broadcasting in the 1920s. It addresses how that vision evolved over succeeding decades as the political, social and media environment in which it operated changed, and considers its enduring legacy for British broadcasting in a multimedia world very different from anything Reith or his successors would have envisaged.

Public Broadcasting in Britain and America

Postwar religious broadcasting in Britain sought to accommodate diverging aims, with public radio as the established arena for Christian evangelism and yet also an emerging forum for dissenting viewpoints in an increasingly faith-averse age. A transitional figure within literary modernism, E. M. Forster embraced broadcast radio in the effort to disseminate ‘culture,’ even as he sought to make the ethical turn away from culture as religious. Since the 1930s, Forster had consistently supported the airing of such ‘minority’ viewpoints; after the war, his arguments for ethical alternatives to Christian broadcasting were bolstered by the rise of postwar ecumenism and the Beveridge reforms. Forster's defense of humanist broadcasts given by Margaret Knight in January 1955 effectively highlights the formated nature of on-air debates at the expense of unpopular viewpoints, even as BBC policy-makers were actively considering abandoning existing practices in favor of stand-alone ethical rebuttals to accepted Christian viewpoints.

This paper reviews recent developments in British television. It argues that, up until recently, the whole of British television—including stations both publicly and privately owned—was a public service system. The impact of the 1990 Broadcasting Act has been to introduce greater competitive pressures into that part of the system financed by advertising. These pressures have been intensified by satellite channels. The direction of the 1994 White Paper on the BBC's future is toward introducing greater commercial pressures into this organization. British television is moving to a commercial system in which there remains a subordinate public service element.

This essay is intended as a response to those who would separate judgement of what is good in television from an understanding of the medium’s general social, cultural, affective and cognitive possibilities, and those who would detach drama from the daily flow of ideas, meanings, images and discourse that are esteemed (or derided) in national broadcasting services. It contrasts the conveniently globalizing abstraction of ‘the aesthetic’ with the situated expectations of popular culture that is of, and about, ‘home’. In the first part, the concept of the aesthetic and its ramifications for indigenous European television drama are unravelled, with particular reference to the three broad possibilities for a project of television aesthetics as invoked by recent contributions to the topic. The second part addresses the continued prominence and continuities of national and public service broadcasting in Britain, with particular reference to visual strategies of space and place in generic drama. It concludes with recommendations for a more catholic sense of value than currently inferred by aesthetic discourse, and for the rigorous and open ethical debate of underlying criteria, in the form of a defence of ‘principled positions’.

Public service broadcasting has been under pressure in the United Kingdom in recent years. The reasons for this situation are considered, the challenges which have arisen are examined, and an assessment of the current and likely future health of public service broadcasting in Britain is offered.

The last two years have been times of turbulence for the BBC, and other broadcasters, in terms of their coverage of UK politics. Their reporting of the general elections of 2015 and 2017, of the 2016 European Union Referendum and the 2015 election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour Party have been much criticised (as has that of other mainstream media outlets). And despite the rise of social media, the BBC remains the most used and most trusted source of news in the UK and hence is a vital element in the UK public sphere. Consequently, these journalistic failures—when its political coverage failed to reflect what turned out to be the reality on the ground - are particularly problematic. This brings into focus the issue of “the truth” in election and referendum campaigns. The example quoted here—about the Labour Party and antisemitism—illustrates the difficulties in arriving at the “truth”, even in the less frenetic atmosphere between campaigns. It demonstrates how there can be many truths and this, in itself, raises urgent questions about the nature of political journalism which pose challenges for public broadcasting in Britain with implications that go much wider.

This chapter summarizes the key findings of the book and recapitulates the main themes, continuities, and changes that marked the BBC’s century. It emphasizes the importance of the commercialization, over the last four decades, of the BBC, including the creation of BBC Studios. It argues that the public service Corporation is now mainly a commissioning body and administrator of legacy media: the crucial work, making and selling programmes, is done by the commercial subsidiary BBC Studios. This may point to the future of public broadcasting in Britain. The chapter concludes by discussing some of the challenges the BBC now faces and evaluates them in the light of its hundred-year history.

The immediate post-war development of broadcasting in Japan had to be viewed against the vast project in social engineering which was otherwise known as the Occupation. So today one has to look at what is happening to broadcasting in Japan against a different but equally vast drawing board on which is being plotted a whole new social engineering project. Any discussion of the relationship between public service broadcasting and new communications policies therefore necessarily enters the heart of a debate not just about the future of public service broadcasting but also about the self-conscious, long-term plan to transform the character of the second greatest economy on earth. The post-war communications system in Japan revolved around the principle of governmental monopoly of public telecommunications; and of NHK as a special public corporation in competition with commercial enterprises.

The value of public service broadcasting in Japan during COVID-19 pandemic: An analysis of WTP by Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition

From 1925 to 1950, NHK monopolized public broadcasting services in Japan. Today it is still the most watched TV network in the country, but competition from commercial broadcasters is getting increasingly stiffen What steps is NHK taking to ensure that it will remain as Japan’s most influential radio and television network in the 21st century?