Meditations on the public/private media debate

It is generally accepted that the principal driver of the commercial media is profit whereas that of the public media is the public good. 

Have you ever been assaulted by the barrage of advertising falling out of our own Townsville Daily Bulletin or infuriated by the imposition of advertisements in the midst of a favourite commmercial T.V. program?  These experiences leave us in little doubt that the almighty dollar has a very important role in ensuring the viability of the commercial media while the standard of content comes a distant second.  But the ABC and SBS, which are largely publicly funded, are different.  One has only to listen to them and to watch their T.V. programs to realize that, on the whole, these are far more committed to the provision of high quality information, education and entertainment than their commercial siblings.

Certainly, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that commercial media are primarily businesses committed to making a profit whereas public media, which are not regarded as being beholden to particular special interests (eg. advertisers), contribute in a more meaningful and universal way to a diversified, robust, democracy.

But wait.  Are things really quite as simple as this? 

Can it not be argued that commercial media are controlled, ultimately, by their “consumers” who can (and do) determine the effectiveness of advertising campaigns by their decisions to buy newspapers, listen to commercial radio or remain switched on to commercial T.V. channels?  Or, put another way, commercial media must meet the perceived needs of their audience if they are to be attractive to prospective advertisers whose only interest is in selling their goods and services.  Commercial media audiences base their selections of preferred programmes entirely on their own interests and it is their democratic right to do so. 

And is there not also an argument that, while public media may be largely free of dependence on advertising, they not entirely free of influence from other quarters?  Perhaps the most significant of these is, ironically, the very body that sustains the media’s public sector in the first place – the Commonwealth Government.  It would be a brave government that would decide to suspend funding of public media entirely but the pressures of our cash strapped economy are inevitably affecting the public medias’ slice of the budget pie and these pressures, together with the targeted nature of the funds these days, must undoubtedly affect public programming priorities.

It can be seen, therefore, that it may not be entirely wise to take a simplistic approach to the merits and disadvantages of commercial and public media.  Perhaps a better conclusion may be that each type fulfils a specific role within our capitalist but democratic society.