Ukrainska Pravda, Ukraine
April 15 2005
Public Service Broadcasting – Lost in Translation
translated by Tanya Vodyanycka , 15.04.2005, 04:04
Original Ukrainian text by Taras Shevchenko, Media Law Institute
Director, Oxford University Media Law School graduate
The Council of Europe is largely to blame for the fact that nobody in
Ukraine knows what public service broadcasting is.
Yes, precisely the Council of Europe, which is one of the greatest
engines of the process of public broadcasting and democratic
reforming as well as being a trendsetter in the field of public
service broadcasting.
Council of Europe has wasted considerable efforts and resources to
popularize the term `public service broadcasting’, yet it failed to
clarify the meaning of this term popularly.
As a result, the majority of Ukrainians have heard about public
service television, nevertheless they have not the foggiest idea of
what it means. Unfortunately, even some of the experts, who offer
their own conceptions of creating public service television, are not
informed adequately about the Europian experience.
I may suppose this statement is true concerning some state officials
of the highest level as well.
Council of Europe managed to popularize the term, that,
unfortunately, doesn’t convey anything to Ukrainians by itself. What
is public service television?
At numerous round tables you may hear that `public service television
is the television of public organizations’ of that `public service
television is the television of territorial communities’.
Those are interesting linquistic estimates, which however have
nothing in common with what’s popularized by the Council of Europe,
which failed to bring its key idea that public service television
standard is a way of reforming state-controlled television to make
it, as much as possible, independent from the state and to place it
the service of citizens.
Namely this and nothing else. It means for Ukraine that National TV
company must be independent and mustn’t be controlled by any of the
government branches.
Documents of the Council of Europe at first contained the term
`national broadcasting’, but then total conversion to `public
service’ took place. From the beginning of 90’s, when Soviet camp
collapsed, it can be noticed particularly clearly.
Here is a quotation from PACE Recommendation 1147 on parliamentary
responsibility for the democratic reform of broadcasting in 1991:
`The basic problem facing the new democracies in Central and Eastern
Europe is the search for an audiovisual system to replace the former
centralised, politically controlled media. However, the alternative
should not be unbridled privatisation and complete liberalisation, as
they could lead to ruinous competition for exclusivity rights or even
monopoly. To prevent this, the legal void left by the collapse of the
totalitarian systems must urgently be filled with the notions of
public service broadcasting (as distinct from the state ownership),
pluralism, independence and balance… It should be recognised that
under appropriate circumstances the function of public service
broadcasting may be fulfilled by the state or privately organised
bodies.’
This quotation clearly indicates that public service television is a
direction of the state television reform.
Second conclusion is that Council of Europe has been working actively
on filling countries with information about public service
broadcasting. However, in my opinion such approach appears to be
incorrect. It by no means contributes to reforms in Ukraine and – on
the contrary – complicates this process because Ukrainians in no way
can agree upon what `public service television’ means and where it
must be established.
Instead they should have been filling countries with information
about the necessity of democratic reforming of the state television
and the principles according to which this reforming must take place.
There is almost no difference in the meaning, yet the terminology of
“state television reform” is more understandable and waives a
question about public service television never existing
simultaneously with state one.
Inconvenience of public service television terminology usage can also
be explained by the fact that it’s not an exact translation from
English.
In English, the term `public service broadcasting’ is used. We
translate it in different ways: for example, as public broadcasting
in official translations of Council of Europe documents and as social
broadcasting in Ukrainian laws. However word `public’ can be
understood as `public’ (connected with the public) or as `state’.
Instead, the metaphrase of `public service broadcasting’ sounds like
`broadcasting in the interests of public’ or `broadcasting serving
citizens’. In other words, none of the Ukrainian terms is in exact
correspondence or reflecting the essence of this special form of
broadcasting.
Another `side effect’ of the spread of `public service broadcasting’
terminology became apparent in some countries that seemed to have
introduced public service television: on request of Council of Europe
adopted particular laws about public service television and replaces
signs on state TV channels, calling them public service.
Nominally, the Council of Europe obligations are fulfilled, still
actually nothing has changed – TV channels remained totally
controlled by the state.
Glaring examples of such reforms are the television networks in
Moldova and Armenia. In the latter for instance, the country’s
president personally forms the governing body of the TV channel and
in that way influences completely the broadcasting content.
There is a serious threat of application of a similar approach in
Ukraine: to call a TV channel a “public service network” – using that
title to mean something else.
It is interesting that in countries of western Europe the public
service broadcasting networks do not include the term “public” or
“public service” in their title: British Broadcasting Corporation
(BBC), Spanish television, National Radio of Spain, Second German
Television (ZDF), France-2, France-3, Swedish television etc.
It is above all that television in practice should serve the
interests of citizens. Why then do Ukrainians need to call their
state television “public service”? Ukraine should reform namely the
state television so that it would work in the interests of citizens
and not the government bodies.
With all this going on, it can be called not public service, but
`Ukraininan’, `national’ or `people’s’, which will be more
understandable and closer to Ukrainians.
Change of title, though influencing the reformation process, still is
not its most important part. The most important is that new
television should correspond to the Council of Europe standards: work
in the interests of citizens, be out of the state’s control, have
appropriate financing and give objective information.