sebster wrote:Fourth, as I've repeatedly pointed out: the BBC is funded by taxes (or fees if you're going to be specific, but it's still a government-imposed and mandated payment obligation) that makes it a government-run organisation.
If you read my post carefully, you'll see I wasn't disagreeing with that in any real way. Here in Australia we have a government broadcaster that's directly state funded.
The point is that if you set up the board of governance properly, then even though there is government funding it doesn't allow for any influence over the content provided, and that's what really matters.
Which is largely irrelevant to the original point I made. My original point was that the BBC was one of many state-run media broadcasting groups being broadcast recently in the United States (and I'll note that Al-Jazeera doesn't seem to have a pro-Qatar perspective, despite being owned by the government of Qatar).
sebster wrote:Fifth, I've also noted that the BBC doesn't have to be biased to be state-run. However, in the United States they are clearly used as a propaganda tool (not maliciously, just promoting UK culture and interests, like bad science-fiction and funny accents).
That's a very odd complaint. Here in Australia, probably about a half of our content is imported TV, and most of that imported from the US. Do you think that should represent insufferable US propagandising?
Only if you're getting
PBS-Australia. Which I highly doubt.
sebster wrote:But this doesn't actually end up producing content that actually favours the government of the day, and that's what matters.
No, what really matters is that the BBC, unlike commercial media groups, has interests outside of producing content to earn revenue. The incentive for the BBC is whatever the head of the BBC wants it to be, because they're always going to get funding and always going to be semi-independent from government.
sebster wrote:But what does 'state-run' matter if it doesn't result in a bias towards the state?
When you give an organization, such as a media company, revenue that is uncoupled to commercial interests then they will devise their own incentives.
Consider the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles, or whatever they call it in Australia), yet another state-run, yet mostly non-politically motivated, organization.
Do they (and by "they" I mean the people who ultimately run the organization, because every low-level employee has a vested interest only in pleasing their boss, which is true for both public and private companies) have a vested interest in providing good service? No, because there's no risk that someone will go elsewhere and deprive them of funds.
Do they have a vested interest in keeping costs down? No, because when you're the only game in town you can set prices however you want.
Do they have an incentive to appeal to politicians (who ultimately appoint the leaders of these organizations)? Not really, because (pretty sure, not positive) no one has ever won or lost an election based on their political position regarding the DMV.
So what incentives does the head of the DMV have? Ultimately, whatever goals they set for themselves, or whatever the policy preferences of the person appointing them are.
Now the BBC is significantly different in that there
is competition for viewers, but their funding ultimately isn't at risk if they lose viewers. Ultimately, however, the BBC is subject to the personal politics of the head of the BBC (or whoever is ultimately responsible for programming decisions). Which may or may not be in line with what the market is interested in.
