Opening Up Europe to Private Television — Harmonisation and Liberalisation for the Benefit of All?

Abstract

On 3 October 1989, the EU Member States adopted the Television without Frontiers Directive (TWF Directive) (European Council, 1989). The Directive obliged them to liberalise the television market no later than 3 October 1991. Even though some countries (including the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Finland, Italy, etc.) had already introduced private television before this date, the TWF Directive marked the official end of broadcasting monopolies and, at the same time, the official beginning of private television in Europe. Until the late 1980s, public broadcasters integrated production, aggregation and distribution within their own company structure. This left untouched an enormous creative and economic potential in the broadcasting sector. To capture the economic and, to a lesser extent, the cultural value of an open television landscape, the television sector was liberalised, in so doing meeting the interests of advertisers, looking for additional venues, right-wing politicians, fearing the “leftist” public broadcasters (e.g., Kiefer, 2004: 558), and citizens, in many cases being fed up with somewhat paternalistic and elitist public broadcasting programming (e.g., Murdock, 1999: 14; Van den Bulck, 2007). Indeed, as Hughes (1988: 53-54) argues, the Reithian ethos of paternalism resulted in “worthy, but ultimately dull programmes, which alienated sections of the audiences, with their refusal to recognise the demands of a culturally divided society”.