Television is a Public Good That is too Important to be Left Entirely to the Market

'Television is a public good that is too important to be left entirely to the market'. To what extent do you agree with this statement? What are the key challenges facing public service television today?
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'Television is a public good that is too important to be left entirely to the market'. To what extent do you agree with this statement? What are the key challenges facing public service television today?
Television is an audiovisual mass medium that people use to get news, entertainment, education and other political, economic and social information. Several media companies run television stations that reach millions of audiences daily. The nature of television, based on ownership and the consumption of its products, makes it an interesting service. Like other businesses, televisions are business entities that capitalize on information dissemination. Television firms sell products from advertisers to audiences, convincing them to buy certain products or services over others. Television becomes a good for facilitating business and earning revenue for the owners of the television stations. All goods undergo market control to regulate consumption and pricing. Television is one of the goods that undergo such market control; thus is a public good that creates a particular control interest to consumers and other stakeholders. Based on this background discussion, I fully agree with the statement that "television is a public good that is too important to be left entirely to the market." This is because television is a vital information source that should be regulated by the public sector to serve the public's interest. The challenges facing public television today are changing viewing habits, technological changes, audience fragmentation, political interference and funding.
Public goods are non-excludable and non-rivalrous, and television fits in this category. Non-excludable means that excluding someone from consuming the good is impossible or costly. On the other hand, non-rivalrous means that one can consume the product alongside others; thus, using the said product does not hinder another person from using it (Andrijašević, 2015). Television is a non-excludable good because once the broadcast signals are roaming, none can stop another one from consuming television content. Similarly, television is non-rivalrous because a person consuming television content does not prevent another from consuming the same content. Therefore, television as a public good agrees with the public goods theory. The theory aims at showing why goods with defined characteristics of publicness cannot be efficiently produced by the private sector (Holcombe, 2000). The model further suggests that public goods are better produced and regulated by the public sector, including governments.
However, technological evolution challenges the nature of television as a public good. When it was discovered, television functioned solely on free-to-air terrestrial television platforms between the 1820s and 1980s, where everybody with a television set enjoyed the broadcast without paying (Andrijašević, 2015). Between the 1980s and 2000, television technology improved, and the good reached consumers in duality; free-to-air terrestrial television and as a paid service through satellite and cable television. Beyond the 2000s, the technology improved, and television reached consumers through free-to-air terrestrial television, satellite and cable television, television internet services and mobile application services (Andrijašević, 2015). The latter transmissions need a subscription, thus excluding some of the audience who cannot afford to subscribe. Nonetheless, this does not change television from being a public good.
Regardless of the channel one uses to watch television programs, television content is regulated and determined by the market forces like other goods. Leaving this regulation task entirely to the market is detrimental to the consumers who are the television audience. Therefore, it is crucial not to leave the regulation task entirely to the demand and supply market forces to ensure accessibility, quality and diversity.
The market forces of demand and supply do not consider the accessibility of goods to consumers. Instead, they create an equilibrium where most stakeholders are comfortable transacting. Whenever a specific good is scarce, the demand increases as well as the price. When the good is in surplus, the demand reduces, and so does the price. In the case of television, letting these forces control the supply of television broadcasts and content does not guarantee accessibility. The cost of accessing television broadcasts would be unfairly distributed, and some people may not enjoy the public good considering the information shared by television is of public interest (Ellis and Kent, 2015). Therefore, accessibility in media and television is crucial to ensure all audiences consume the public good. Leaving the control and regulation of television to the private sector may restrict this accessibility inconveniencing the consumers against the use and gratification theory and the cultivation theory.
The uses and gratification theory is a model used to assess and understand why and how people actively seek out specific media types to satisfy their needs. The focus question for the uses and gratification theory is "What do people do with the media" as opposed to "What does media do to people" (Dux and Kim, 2018). According to the theory, media is a highly available good for consumers. Television, as a media form, should be accessible and available to consumers. Therefore, leaving it entirely to the private limits consumers' access to the good against the uses and gratification theory.
The cultivation theory is a sociological and communication model examining television's effects as a media form. The theory argues that people exposed to certain media goods, like television, perceive the world as being similar to the information they consume from the media (Shrum, 2017; Libretexts, 2020). Subsequently, this influences their behavior and attitude. Television is a public good that ensures people have access to different information. Leaving its control entirely to the market means the information shared will be skewed based on what the owners of television stations want. This is dangerous because people's attitudes and behavior will be skewed towards what the private market forces want (Shrum, 2017). Therefore, allowing the public and other stakeholders beyond the private sector to participate in media regulation boosts accessibility to health and decent information. This, in turn, means people's attitudes and behavior will be shaped based on balanced information consumed from televisions.
Leaving the control and regulation of television as a public good entirely to the market may not guarantee quality services to consumers. The private sector primarily care about profit and revenue. This leaves out the quality aspect, a vital factor in television (Freedman, 2019). Public regulation in television helps ensure that the content shared with the audience meets certain standards and serves the public interest as a public good. Leaving this function entirely to the private sector is detrimental because it will prioritize profit over quality (Andrijašević, 2015). This will go against the cultivation theory because people's attitudes and behavior will be shaped based on profit-making strategies that neglect the significance of the quality of the information shared. Similarly, a compromise of quality that may happen by letting television be under the strict control of the private sector will go against the uses and gratification theory. The audience will have access mostly to selected information and thus will not efficiently satisfy their needs through consuming quality television content.
Leaving television control as a public good only to the market's private sector is likely to hinder the production and dissemination of diverse content to the audience. Diversity in television content production and consumption refers to availing content about minority communities (Bakkenes, 2022). In a profit-driven market structure, content produced for television targets the dominant communities because it tr...