The Dilemma and Contradictions of Public Service Broadcasting
By James Tamba Lebbie
The object of this piece is to outline the dilemma and contradictions of public service broadcasting and to critically analyse whether the SLBC could enhance public discourse in the current circumstance. However, in this first of a four-part series of his perspective on public service broadcasting, James Tamba Lebbie has endeavoured to provide a trans-Atlantic synopsis of the historical background of the concept of public service broadcasting.
The search for a new paradigm of public service broadcasting to replace Sierra Leone’s outdated model of state-controlled media has been a herculean task for policy makers, politicians and media practitioners alike. After several megaphone rhetoric and consultations among the government and media actors, the Parliament of Sierra Leone passed a bill into law in December 2009 that transformed the national broadcaster into an autonomous corporate body known as the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC).
Although the SLBC Act was inaugurated on January 28, 2010 the new public service broadcaster didn’t commence operations until April 1, 2010, two weeks before it was officially inaugurated with the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon in attendance. The inauguration came in the wake of a merger on April 7, of the old Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service and the United Nations Radio in Sierra Leone, a move supported by the country’s UN Mission in a bid to strengthen - technically and in human capacity terms - the new public broadcaster. If it succeeded, the SLBC would be the second or perhaps third, (depending on where you stand on the status of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation) independent public broadcaster in the African continent after the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, it was David Sarnoff, an American entrepreneur who first discussed radio broadcasting in public service terms. In 1922, he stated that “considered from its broadest aspect…broadcasting represents a job of entertaining, informing and educating the nation, and should therefore be distinctly regarded as a public service”. However, it was a Scotsman, John Reith in his capacity as Director-General of the BBC who first gave public service broadcasting an institutional form.
What we know today as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was established on 25th May, 1922 under the supervision of the Postmaster General’s office. The BBC aired its first radio broadcast on the 14th November, 1922 from Marconi House, London with the reading of the “six o‘clock news bulletin into an ordinary telephone receiver connected to the 2LO transmitter”. The company was incorporated on 15th December, 1922 and held its first Board meeting on 21st December, 1922. However, it didn’t receive it license to broadcast from the Post Office until 18th January, 1923 (Briggs, 1985).
At that time, the BBC was a private company made up of “manufacturers of radio equipment.” From the outset, the BBC pegged its funding on license and contract fees. Almost immediately, the Company found itself in a position where people were reluctant to pay their license fee, “which was payable on purchase of BBC wireless sets.” Consequently, the BBC was on a collision course with the Post Office because the BBC wanted the latter not only to increase the fees but also take action against those not wanting to pay. To resolve the issue, the Postmaster General in April 1923 set up the Sykes Committee (comprising members of Parliament, representatives of the Post Office, the press, radio manufacturers and the BBC) to review “the whole question of broadcasting – not merely the question of licenses, but the desirability of existing contracts and the questions that have arisen on contracts.” In August 1923, the Sykes Committee published its report, which espoused the views, including that of the BBC Director-General that “broadcasting should be organized in the public interest and free from direct control of either radio manufacturers or the Post Office”. That notwithstanding, the Committee upheld the view that for the time being, the BBC should remain a private company although it also recommended among other things that that a “standing committee”, which might be called the “Broadcasting Board”, should be set up by statute to assist the Postmaster-General in the administration of – technical, operational and general - of broadcasting, and to which the Postmaster-General should refer important matters concerning the control of broadcasting for advice.
By 1924, fearing government censorship and the commercial motives of some Company members, several significant voices in England advocated a public service ethic of the BBC. Specifically, some asked that broadcasting should be taken away from private hands and be treated as a “public service.” Among these voices was the BBC Director-General, who wanted the BBC to function as a public trust as opposed to the American-style commercial media enterprise.
In July, 1925, the Post Master-General set up another committee, the Crawford Committee to “advise as to the proper scope of the Broadcasting service and as to the management, control and finance thereof after the expiration of the existing license in December 1926”, (Briggs, 1985).
Although the Committee published its report in March 1926 it was not until July 1926 that the main recommendation, which largely supported the Director-General’s position that the BBC should be a public body free from outside interference was officially announced. Among its key recommendations, “the committee agreed unanimously that ‘the United States system of uncontrolled transmission and reception’ was not suitable for Britain”, adding that broadcasting should remain a monopoly to be “controlled by a single authority.” Moreover, the Committee pointed out that “no company or body constituted on trade lines for the profit, direct or indirect, of those comprising it” could be regarded as adequate for the conduct of broadcasting, and that broadcasting in the future should be supervised by a ‘Commission.’” The Committee also rejected the argument, in line with the Director General, that the Commission should be “representative.” Instead, it recommended that “it should consist of persons of judgment and independence, free of commitments…men and women of business acumen and experienced in affairs.” The Committee added that “the proper place for particular interests should be on advisory committees and not on the Commission itself.”
The British government endorsed the recommendations and on 26th December, 1926, the British Broadcasting Company was transformed into to a new authority called the British Broadcasting Corporation. The new Corporation derived its authority from a Royal Charter (which sets out the duties and powers of both the Director-General and the Governors), rather than from a statute with the object of making it clear to the public that the BBC was not “a creation of Parliament and connected with political activity.” Its fundamental mission was to provide information, enlightenment and entertainment for the public. The BBC received its first Charter for ten years in January, 1927 in its first formal meeting of the Governors. Five governors were each appointed for a term of five years with the possibility of a renewal. Subsequently, John Reith also became the first formal Director-General of the Corporation. In the early 1930s, advertisers worked diligently to have the BBC accept commercial advertising but were unable to generate even minimal public enthusiasm. With the approval of the Ullswater Committee Report in 1936, the primacy of non-profit and non-commercial broadcasting was established as non-negotiable for almost a generation, (McChesney, 199).
By the early 1950s however, the BBC monopoly came under threat, which eventually culminated with the creation of the Independent Television (ITV) as a competitor in 1955, which subsequently opened the floodgate in 1973 for competition in the private sector.
In the United States, the struggle for public service broadcasting has been even more dramatic. The period between the First and the Second World Wars saw the ascendancy of a commercial system of advertiser-supported broadcasting networks. The implication of such a structural arrangement is that among other things, non-commercial media were destined to play a second fiddle irrespective of the forms they might assume. So, unlike the UK (and indeed, much of Europe) where broadcasting started as a non-profit and non-commercial broadcasting monopoly and subsequently developed into a public service enterprise, the US adopted a market-oriented system from the outset that was quickly dominated by two commercial networks – NBC and CBS. The absolute goal of this system was profit maximization by any necessary means. This also meant that radio and television content were dominated by popular entertainment programs usually favored (and created) by advertising agencies. By the time commercial broadcasting became formalized in the late 1920s, an aggressive broad-based movement launched a major and ideological and political campaign with the object to either eradicate or drastically reduce for-profit advertising-supported broadcasting and substitute it with a non-profit system operated on the principles of public service. However, with the passage of the Communications Act of 1934 and the creation of the Federal Communications Commission, “the U.S. reform movement disintegrated, and the profit-motivated basis of U.S. broadcasting was politically inviolable for ever after, (McChesney, 1999).
Public broadcasting developed slowly into an institution in the United States after World War II. A small group of noncommercial stations, largely licensed to state colleges and universities, managed to survive and by 1930s, the FCC had reserved frequencies for their exclusive use although their reservation were only in the new (and largely unavailable) FM band. Furthermore, these frequencies were made for a limited number of stations that fall under the category of “noncommercial and educational”. During the heyday of American AM radio, noncommercial licenses had an insignificant presence in the medium especially in large population centers. This situation was perpetuated by the absence of a national, interconnected network coupled with dismal funding compared to other countries abroad. With the growth in commercial radio and television throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, arts and educational programming were largely ignored my major networks and radio broadcasters in favor of entertainment programming designed to lure advertisers. Locally run nonprofit television and radio stations attempted to fill the gap, but their smaller budgets made it difficult for them to produce the high-tech programming the public was coming to expect. These factors partly explain why noncommercial radio service was so narrowly defined, locally based and technologically limited that up to the 1960s, it was barely recognized in U.S. media culture. In addition, public service communication values and institutions were never widely understood in the broader British and European terms. In fact, public service organizations abroad tended to be seen and dismissed by Americans as “state” broadcasting. Thus, by the time public media became institutionalized in the late 1960s, it was an island in a massive sea of commercialism.
Meanwhile, by the 1960s, the pitfalls of the commercial-adequacy assumption were so glaring that federal policy for broadcasting began to make some adjustments. For instance, federal support moved beyond frequency reservation to funding certain forms of educational and instructional programming and the construction of noncommercial facilities. In 1965, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a nonprofit foundation, created a commission to study the problem and assist a legislative lobbying effort to provide public funding for what the commission dubbed public broadcasting. It was the landmark report of the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television that set the stage by providing both “a theoretical rationale and a practical blueprint for the Public Broadcasting Act” in the United States of America. The report “advanced the notion of a public – as opposed to mere educational – broadcasting that promised to transform broadcasting into a great national resource”. It also underscored the significant potential of public radio and television especially “as a democratic instrument capable of affirming American diversity and reviving civic life”. In 1967 therefore, Congress passed the Public Broadcasting Act, which signaled an apparent victory of the movement to establish a non-commercial broadcasting system in America, (Avery, 1993).
Black Box
The Contradictions and Dilemma of Public Service Broadcasting (Part 2)
By James Tamba Lebbie
In Part I of his perspective on public service broadcasting, James Tamba Lebbie endeavored to proffer a comparative background of the enterprise in both the UK and USA. In this second of his four-part series, he looks at the structure, governance and funding of both systems.
In spite of its many challenges, the BBC is regarded by many media scholars as the paragon of public service broadcasting around the world.
Broadly speaking, the BBC has two divisions: the BBC Domestic Service and the BBC World Service. The former has a centralized management structure with a quasi-centralized editorial control. The BBC Domestic Service further has service licenses to run several radio and television channels. For radio, there are sixteen service licenses, while television has eleven service licenses in addition to its online and mobile service licenses. Within each relevant service license, the BBC schedules a number of regional programs, or 'opt-outs', which provide audiences with variations on network channel outputs.
The BBC Trust - the institution’s governing and regulatory body - issues each BBC service a Service License, which sets out what the Trust expect it to achieve and the funding that is required. The Service Licenses help the Trust govern the BBC’s activities. They provide an open account of each BBC service remit, scope, budget, aims and objectives, any essential activities and a description of how the Trust will assess their performance.
In the area of governance, the BBC has undergone several changes since the granting of its legal framework in 1927. Under successive Royal Charters, the properties and powers of the BBC had been vested in its then Board of Governors. The 1925 Crawford Committee recommended the establishment of an independent body to develop broadcasting in the public interest. There have been several Charters since 1927. Meanwhile, the current Charter Royal Charter has replaced the old Board of Governors and management with the Trust and an Executive Board respectively.
Administratively, the BBC is divided into two bodies: the Board of Trustees and the Executive Board whose duties are clearly set out in a governance framework that comprises the Royal Charter, Agreement and Protocols. The Royal Charter is the constitutional basis for the BBC. It defines the public purposes of the BBC, guarantees its independence, and outlines the duties of the Trust and Executive Board. The existing Charter will expire on December 31, 2016. The six public purposes of the BBC, otherwise referred to as its fundamental mission are:
Sustaining citizenship and civil society; promoting education and learning; Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence; representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities; bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK, and helping to deliver to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services and, in addition, taking a leading role in the switchover to digital television.
The Agreement provides specific details on the several topics outlined in the Charter. It also encompasses the BBCs funding and its regulatory responsibilities. The Agreement is subject to amendments as developments in the BBC unfold.
The BBC Trust comprises eleven Trustees and is headed by a chairman and assisted by a Vice-Chairman. All the Trustees are appointed by the Queen on the advice of the ministers in charge of the department for Culture, Media and Sports through the Prime Minister. Four Trustees take special responsibilities for the UK's four nations: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The relationship between the Trust and the Executive Board is governed by the Royal Charter and Agreement and also by a number of Protocols, which set out how the BBC will put into practice the principles set out into the Charter. In addition, the Protocols spell out the Trust’s role, responsibilities and processes. The BBC Trust commissions the Executive Board to draft the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines, which set out the standards all BBC content is required to meet, and approves them if satisfactory. The Trust also issues a remit for each of the six public purposes, with each remit detailing how the BBC can fulfill that purpose.
In addition, a Trust Unit assists the Trust with "independent and objective advice". The unit is separated from the rest of the BBC and answerable only to the Trust in order “to ensure its independence.” Four members of the Trust unit are each responsible for Strategy, Governance, Editorial and Communications. An Audience Council helps the Trust understand the needs and concerns of audiences across the UK. In consultations with the Audience Councils, the Trust assesses the Executive Board’s performance. Each of the UK’s four nations has a council, with each council chaired by the Trustee for the nation, (BBC Charter, Article 39(6)).
In terms of funding, the BBC has relied on license and other fees since its inception in 1922. The virtue of the license fee, according to the Trust, is to protect the BBC’s independence from both political and market forces. Despite the challenges faced in the collection of this fee, it still remains a reliable revenue source for the BBC.
Across the Atlantic however, public service broadcasting in the United States evolved as a decentralized institution out of the existing noncommercial “educational” radio service that was narrowly defined, locally based and technologically limited in capacity (Avery, 1993). The passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 saw the establishment of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB) - a 15-member Board of presidential appointees - as a body meant to insulate the new entity from outside interference. This was followed by the emergence of both the National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
In 1968, the US Congress created CPB as a private, not-for-profit Corporation to promote the development of public media in communities throughout America. Since then “CPB has been the steward of the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting and the largest single source of funding for public radio, television, and related online and mobile services.” As part of its Congressional mandate, CPB provides essential operational support “for nearly 1,300 locally-owned and operated public television and radio stations. CPB itself produces no programming, but “helps support the production of broadcast programs and other services for multiple digital platforms by thousands of producers and production companies throughout the country.” CPB, PBS, and NPR are independent of each other and of the local public television and radio stations across the country. CPB neither owns and operates, nor controls broadcast stations, “but distributes more than 70 percent of its federal funds directly to stations throughout the country”.
In 1969, the CPB created PBS to manage and operate a nationwide program distribution system interconnecting all local public television stations and providing a distribution channel for national programs. PBS does not produce programs for its members; rather, it aggregates funding for the creation and acquisition of programs by and for the stations and distribute them through a satellite program distribution system, (Ickes, 2006).
In addition, CPB created NPR in 1970 with responsibility for public radio. Unlike its counterpart, which is not allowed to produce programs for its member stations, NPR was created as a news-gathering, production and program distribution company governed by its member public radio stations. In addition the NPR is authorized to produce radio programs for its members as well as to provide, acquire, and distribute radio programming through its satellite program distribution system with the availability of regional up-links across the country for public radio stations and other producers to distribute their programs, (Ickes, 2006).
Unlike its counterpart in the UK, public media in the US receive funding from several sources including but not limited to federal appropriations through Congress, membership contributions, grants from foundations and underwriting from businesses. Of these sources, membership contribution constitutes the lion’s share. Meanwhile, CPB’s appropriation is allocated through a distribution formula in its authorizing legislation. The funds are broken down into four categories: grants to stations; grants for programming; system support; and administrative operations. About 90 percent of the funds from the federal government is disbursed either to public television and radio broadcasting stations, or to producers and distributors of public radio and television programs. Of that amount, about 18 percent is allocated for grants to program producers, and about five percent is allocated for grants to public radio stations that are restricted in use to production or acquisition of national programs. Almost two-thirds of the total appropriation is allocated for largely unrestricted grants to public television and radio broadcasting stations. Finally, not more than five percent of the appropriation may be used for CPB’s administrative expenses. (Ickes, 2006).
The Dilemma and Contradictions of Public Service Broadcasting (Part 3)
In Part 2 of his treatise on the dilemma and contradictions of public service broadcasting, James Tamba Lebbie outlined the structure, governance and funding mechanisms of the British and American models of the enterprise. In Part 3, he dilates on the dilemma of such an enterprise as well as the contradictions that are plaguing it.
Opponents (mostly proponents of corporate/private media) of public service broadcasting have argued that the enterprise has become obsolete. The say the historical justifications for public service broadcasting were twofold: first, it was to maintain public control over what was then a scare broadcast spectrum (the notion here is that it is preferable to have public monopoly than a private monopoly over radio and television as in the case of the BBC in its formative years); second, public broadcasting would provide those programs that were socially beneficial but which private/commercial broadcasters would find unsuitable (for profit reasons) to produce. But with the rise of cable, satellite, and digital broadcasting technologies that have dramatically increased the number of channels, and not to mention the internet, the argument continues, the notion of scare broadcast spectrum has become irrelevant (McChesney, 1999).
Proponents of public service broadcasting on the other hand, have countered those arguments by pointing out that on the whole, the mainstream discourse on public broadcasting has been historically inaccurate. While they acknowledge an element of truth in the spectrum “scarcity” rationale, they contend that the rise of public broadcasting systems across the globe also reflected protracted political fights over how best to organize media in a democratic society. They argue that indeed, the decline of public service broadcasting in Western democracies has little to do with technological change than it does with the worldwide neoliberal adoption of the market and its commercial values as the superior regulator of the media. In this regard, the attack on public service broadcasting is inextricably linked with the current attack on all forms of noncommercial public service institutions and values (McChesney, 2008).
Paddy Scannel (1989) develops a convincing position statement that views public service broadcasting as a catalyst for greater citizen access to the arenas of public life while facilitating the transformation of political discourse into a more accessible form that is well suited to the norms of everyday life. He contends that in a very real sense, public service broadcasting has done more than any other broadcasting mechanism to demystify the political process and to provide a public forum for responsible public debate. In this sense, public service broadcasting can be characterized in stark contrast to its depiction as a repressive ideological apparatus. Instead, it is seen as a potent positive force for the preservation of democracy through citizen participation. Scannel concludes that the growing audience fragmentation resulting from the targeted strategies of a commercial-based marketplace could undermine the public sphere so central to democratic freedom and that a universally available public broadcasting system stands as a deterrent to the erosion of public speech within a multichannel environment.
David Basamian (2002) takes the argument in favour of public service broadcasting further with an assertion that the enterprise is more important than ever. The reason, he says, is that our sources for news and information are becoming more and more limited. Basamian raises the question of what will happen to democracy if a handful of corporations or individuals for that matter, own, mint, and distribute that information. He notes that monopoly control of media and the means to deliver information are serious threats to democracy.
Meanwhile, the principles of public service broadcasting have long been universality of service, diversity of programming, provision for minorities and the disadvantaged, sustaining an informed electorate, and cultural and educational enrichment. And indeed, since public broadcasting established itself as a fledgling industry in the early 1920s, these lofty ideals and principles have existed as a persuasive counterstatement to the ridiculous and sometimes, mercenary tenets of commercial free enterprise.
Whatever the arguments, it is perhaps, fair to state that public service broadcasting throughout the major Western democracies had come under attack and that the importance and legitimacy of those underlying principles had been called into question.
In Britain, for instance, the emergence of a multi-channel media environment contributed to changing both the way the public accessed media products and also their perception about the product and services received. In addition, political parties across the divide were lampooning the system. While “the New Right was questioning the very idea of public culture, the New Left was calling the national broadcasters elitist, statist, unaccountable, divisive, and exclusive” (Rowland & Tracey, 1990). Among the many causes for the decline of the popularity of public broadcasting in Britain, the introduction of new delivery systems, especially cable television “weakened the argument for a public service broadcast system that was itself a response to public interest principles rooted in the reality of limited spectrum space” (Avery, 1993).
Moreover, although the difficulties faced in the new multichannel environment are similar, public service broadcasting developed differently in each country and the struggle in each country has been to define the concept of public interest. While there is universal agreement that notions of public interest and common good should drive the future of public service broadcasting, there appears to be widespread disagreement on what these concepts actually mean. As a result, the standards against which public service broadcasters are held accountable are still ambiguous, (Avery, Ed., 1993).
Similarly, concepts of diversity and quality remain unclear. While most agree that these should be among the goals of public service broadcasting, few agree on how they should be measured. In many developing countries especially, where funding for public service broadcasters are negligible, attainment of both goals is a tall order. Often, one is pursued at the expense of the other. Furthermore, although the consensus is that public service means information, education, culture, and entertainment, these concepts are so broad that further refinement of these terms is needed.
Another universal problem is that of funding. Most countries are facing increasingly competitive commercial markets, with demands placed on public service broadcasters to support themselves and to make a new and better case for public funds. Rising production and programming costs are being met with decreased resources, while national and international competitors proliferate. Therefore, the pressure to maximize audiences may easily overcome the need to serve minority tastes and may adversely affect the ability of public broadcasters to take risks and experiment new undertakings. In the same vein, while public broadcasters are expected to regard their audiences as a public to be served (as in the case of the UK), putting pressure on them to raise funds through the provision of commercial services (as in the case of America and recently, Sierra Leone) means those audiences have been transformed into a market to be exploited. Worst still, public broadcasters working under such circumstances always found themselves in a dilemma of serving two masters – public and the market – with most times ensuring the latter’s interest at the expense of the former.
Other dilemma and contradictions include but not limited to the fact that domestic public broadcasting systems are often caught between convergence and decentralization, especially when the system has a centralized administrative structure.
Most importantly perhaps is the contradiction of the nomenclature of the system. Although is it called “public” service broadcasting, the operations of these institutions is left in the hands of few “professionals” rather than the public themselves, who frame public discourse and determine public tastes. The question therefore to ask is how public are public service broadcasters.
Black Box:
The Dilemma and Contradictions of Public Service Broadcasting, (Final part)
By James Tamba Lebbie
In the penultimate part of his perspective on public service broadcasting, James Tamba Lebbie elaborated on the enterprise’s myriad challenges that are plaguing the industry. In this final part, he situates his critique in the context of Sierra Leone’s public service broadcaster with the view to ascertaining whether from a policy framework standpoint, the SLBC could enhance public discourse among other things.
When in December 2009, Parliament passed the bill for corporatizing the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service into law, which effectively transformed the national broadcaster into an autonomous corporate body known as the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC), there was a huge sense of optimism among media scholars, practitioners and concerned citizens alike for a new media dispensation. But almost two years after such a milestone, that sense of optimism has waned considerably, giving rise to mounting speculations that the government could take over the entity again. In my estimation and in the judgment of some media scholars, the underlying cause for this apparent air of public pessimism is rooted in the seemly flawed policy framework that established the SLBC.
The SLBC Act of 2010 underpins the governance framework of the SLBC, while two other documents (the SLBC Editorial Guidelines and the IMC Media Code of Practice) provide guidelines for editorial programming. In terms of its structure, the SLBC like its BBC counterpart has a two-tier structure: a Board of Trustees, which formulates policy, and a Management, which executes the policies. However, as pointed out above, the Act appears to be fraught with many flaws and contradictions, some of which undermine the very independence and sustainability of the institution.
Although on paper, the SLBC is accountable to the public through a Board of Trustees and that its editorial independence is guaranteed in the Act, which clearly states that the SLBC should promote “fair competition based on internationally acceptable principles for a public broadcaster”, in practical terms, it is not clear how the SLBC could maintain both its editorial and financial independence when the Act gives so much power to the President and the Minister of Information. For instance, the President appoints the entire members of the Board of Trustees including the Chairman (Section 3(1), Paragraph (a); Section 3(2). Moreover, the President appoints the Director-General of the SLBC “on the recommendation of the Board” as provided for in Section 13(1) of the Act. Although Section 8(10) of the Act gives powers to the Board to regulate its own procedure, Section 6 gives the Minister of Information the power to approve remunerations, fees and allowances of Board members and “expenses incurred in connection with the discharge of their functions as the Board may determined.” Similarly, the Act requires the SLBC to submit its annual report of activities, operations and undertakings at the end of the financial year to the Minister of Information, who will subsequently present the report to Parliament. The implications of such an arrangement are that, with Presidential powers to hire and fire, it is difficult to see how the Board can insulate the SLBC from political interference. Also, by giving the Minister of Information control over the Board’s budget, the Act has also undermined the powers of the Board and the Corporation as a whole. While the administrative structure of the Sierra Leone public broadcasting is not significantly different from the UK (where all Trustees are appointed by the Queen through the Prime Minister) and the USA (where the Corporation for Public Broadcasting comprises a 15-member Board of presidential appointees), the conditions in Sierra Leone are very different. While the UK and USA have a strong democratic culture with fairly robust checks and balance practices, Sierra Leone’s democratic credentials are suspect. Its political culture is characterized by weak state institutions where checks and balance are almost non-existent.
Moreover, Section 3(1b) lists certain governing bodies that will elect their representatives to be Trustees of the Board. However, Section 3(2) empowers the President to appoint Trustees subject to parliamentary approval. As seen in the aftermath of the inauguration of the SLBC in 2010, this section of the Act raised some controversy between SLAJ and the government. What this in effect highlights is that in the absence of a clearly defined policy document that will explicitly unravel some of those ambiguities in the Act as well as clearly outline the role and responsibilities of the Board of Trustees and those of the management - like in the case of the BBC Charter and Agreement and Protocols – the SLBC Act could be subject to conflicting interpretations by different interest groups in the country.
Furthermore, the SLBC Act mandates the Corporation to “provide appropriate coverage of the proceedings of key decision making bodies including Parliament”, (Sec.10.2.o). Granted that Parliament and other government bodies are key institutions, whose deliberations and procedures should be in the public domain; however, in my judgment, the decision to cover Parliamentary and other government proceedings should be left to the discretion of management and the editors. Any legal directive in the Act to do otherwise could be construed as a blatant interference into the editorial judgment and independence of the SLBC.
In addition, it is very challenging to say the least, for the SLBC to create a credible public broadcaster out of an old structure and using the same old people (without an adequate and relevant training) that have been accustomed to the old template of broadcasting. By the time the SLBS was transformed to the SLBC, the institution has lost all credibility among many Sierra Leoneans due to its role as a mouthpiece for government propaganda.
Meanwhile, in the area of funding, while the primary source of income for the SLBC is through government appropriation, the Act also mandates the SLBC to undertake commercial services including advertising. This arrangement potentially undermines the SLBC’s independence and by extension, its editorial autonomy. In comparison with the UK and USA, it is not clear which model of funding Sierra Leone is following. While funding for the BBC’s domestic service comes primarily from license fees, funding for US public media is through membership contributions, corporate underwriting, foundation grants, and government appropriations. Although the SLBC funding more closely approximates the US model, the difference lies in the fact that in Sierra Leone, government subvention constitutes the SLBC’s largest source of funding. In the case of the US funding model, the system has come under scathing criticisms for serving two masters – public and private interests. “Corporate underwriting”, which has become a de facto advertising, creates the likelihood for compromising editorial independence and influencing the type of programs produced. With some justification, public media in the US has been accused of being subservient to corporate interests and there is the likelihood that the SLBC would follow that same track.
In addition, eyebrows have been raised over the fact that the SLBC Act empowers the new public broadcaster to undertake commercial advertising as one of its sources of funding. Many media actors including SLAJ, have pointed to such a provision as a threat to the survival of private/commercial and community radio broadcasters because the SLBC has a wider reach to potential audience/viewers and therefore, a relatively superior capacity to attract advertisers. On the whole, critics have argued that for a public broadcaster to be truly independent and accountable to the public and not some other special interests, its source of funding should be through the public like the BBC. They argue that if government or other private interest groups are paying for public media, there is every possibility for such an institution to become subservient to its paymasters. However, despite the Act’s provision for a measure of government’s funding in addition to undertaking commercial activities, there is still no guarantee of the SLBC’s financial sustainability.
Besides, it is not clear how the SLBC could rebrand itself against the backdrop of massive public indifference and pessimism for its predecessor (the SLBS) when it has retained many of the old members of staff to create a new system out of an old, collapsed structure. Many of those staff have worked for the former SLBS for decades and have become accustomed to the old template of broadcasting to the extent that changing to a new public service paradigm of broadcasting without thorough training and a reorientation of the mindset would be a very tall order.
In the midst of these challenges, the SLBC has some considerations to make. The first concerns the dilemma facing many public service broadcasters: diversity versus editorial quality, both of which demands a considerable amount of funding.
Furthermore, like the BBC, the Director General of the SLBC is the sole editor-in-chief. However, in the light of Sierra Leone’s decentralized governance structure, its cultural diversity and the existence of satellite stations in all administrative regions of the country, the SLBC should decide between a centralized editorial structure (with limited autonomy for regional stations in a bid to enhance a single national identity like the BBC), or a completely decentralized editorial control as in the US).
In conclusion, there is so far, no assurance that the SLBC would enrich public discourse in Sierra Leone, given the existence of draconian laws regarding criminal and seditious libel and the absence of a freedom of information law. These and other burning issues are likely to undermine the relevance and benefits of public service broadcasting for the people of Sierra Leone.
