Trine Syvertsen, professor

Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo

P.O. box 1093 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway

The 1990s were marked by a wave of media policy reform all over Europe. Politicians generally cited technological change and convergence as the rationale behind the re-regulation process (Levy 1999:100, McQuail and Siune eds. 1998). Convergence refers to the process whereby all forms of content (still or moving pictures, sound, text and data) can be made available via any transmission medium, eroding the traditional distinctions between telecommunications, computers and broadcasting. At the heart of the convergence process lies the rapid adoption of digital technology for the reproduction, storage and transmission of information in all media (DTI/DCMS 1998, NOU 1999:26).

Depending on geographical, linguistic and socio-political factors, governments in different countries have responded differently to the challenges posed by convergence. In a British consultation paper the government boldly stated that it was committed to ‘ensuring that the UK is a world leader in the communication sector in the 21^st century’ (DTI/DCMS 1998: 3). In contrast, governments in small countries have taken a more defensive stance. One of the main question posed by the Norwegian Minister of Culture in her annual media policy report to Parliament was: ‘Will Anglo-American media dominate or will there still be space for programmes reflecting Norwegian culture and society?’ (Mediepolitisk redegjørelse 2000).

This paper focuses on the current debate over broadcasting re-regulation in Europe, with particular emphasis on the Norwegian situation. While several major accounts of the regulatory process in the major European states have emerged in recent years (Kleinsteuber 1998, Levy 1999, Marsden and Verhulst 1999, Steemers (ed.) 1998), less is so far written about the smaller European states. Norway is of particular interest since the country is not an EU member. However, the inclusion of the country into the so-called European Economic Area (EEA) from 1.1.1994 implies that Norway has to comply with most EU regulations.

The paper begins by outlining the main ideological positions in the discussion over the future regulation of media and broadcasting. The paper goes on to identify some of the more specific challenges to current media regulation and outlines how policy-makers in Norway have responded to these challenges. So far, it is difficult to judge the adequacy of these policies. We are still in the embryonic stages of ‘the digital future’ and both policy-making and research are bound to contain a large measure of speculation. Nevertheless, it is already possible to discern certain shifts in the way media policies are designed. In conclusion of the paper these shifts are discussed and so are the more specific consequences for public service broadcasting.

The question of how broadcasting should be regulated is at the heart of the current debates over convergence in Europe. The main question concerns whether traditional forms of regulation, including regulation protecting public service broadcasting, is still relevant in the emerging digital broadcasting system. Critics claim that such regulation is inextricably linked to spectrum scarcity and is rapidly becoming obsolete. As David Wood, editor of the newsletter Broadband, comments on a recent policy debate in the UK concerning the scheduling of news:

[N]ot for the first time, technological change has raced way ahead of the anachronistic agendas of public service broadcasting (PSB) and UK television regulation. Already video-on-demand (VOD) technology allows viewers to grab their slice of news whenever they like (…). While the roll out of VOD services will offer a huge range of instantly available library programming, set-top boxes (…) can log viewer preferences and record the programmes they want to see. Let’s face it, PSB has had its day. When the TV spectrum was a limited resource, broadcasting TV was rightly heavily regulated for the public good. (…) Now those who can afford it can have exactly what they want – and a gradual transition from PSB to Me TV is inevitable (April 2000).

The main thrust of the argument is that public interest provisions are no longer necessary as the power over broadcasting is being transferred from the regulator and broadcaster to the viewer (Green 1995:27). Underlying this argument is a pervasive notion of consumer sovereignty that represents an amalgam of neo-liberalist and postmodernist thinking. Within the neo-liberalist school of thought it is presumed that the market is the most efficient regulator, not just for areas of growth and competitiveness but also for other domains of human activity, such as culture and education (Pauwels 1999: 66). The postmodernist strand of thinking, on the other hand, is predominantly anti-hierarchical, presuming that since viewers use and interpret media messages in a variety of ways, and since an abundance of content is available, it is not really necessary to control broadcasting at the point of what is transmitted.

A broad lobby of interests, including public broadcasting organisations, cultural commentators and media academics, needless to say, opposes this perspective. Within this lobby it is argued that the critique against regulation and public broadcasting is based on a series of flawed perceptions, most notably a blatant technological determinism wrongly assuming that the form of distribution determines the mode of regulation. As Gibbons (1998:73) argues, ‘[t]he issues to be resolved in shaping media practices and standards remain the same, whatever the form of delivery’. Furthermore, it is argued that the consumer sovereignty perspective deliberately misrepresents the role of broadcasting in society. It ignores the important role played by national broadcasters in sustaining democracy, a national cultural sphere and the sense of belonging to a community. As such it represents the illegitimate influx of US-style thinking in a European setting (Gibbons 1998, Green 1995, Feintuck 1999, Sussman 1997, Tongue 1999: 111, Pauwels 1999: 68-73).

The contest between consumer sovereignty perspectives stressing individual choice, and more traditional conservative and social-democratic ideas concerned with the uses of broadcasting for political and cultural ends, has dominated European media policy debate for at least two decades. The struggle between the two perspectives was at the heart of the first wave of media re-regulation in the 1980s and continues to dominate EU policy-making even today. Then, as now, the situation cannot be characterised solely as a struggle between ‘opponents’ and ‘defenders’ of regulation. Instead we have a more complicated situation where both supporters and opponents of traditional broadcasting regimes believe that existing legislative structures are in need of reform. The supporters of public broadcasting and the traditional order advocate regulatory changes, sometimes in a direction of increased commercialism, in order to salvage what they perceive to be the core values of the old system. New media interests keen to exploit new markets appeal to regulators to establish a legal framework where it is easier to reap profits from the new media. The result is a situation where all parties agree that something has to be done but in practice envisage very different solutions.

The processes of digitalisation and convergence present policy-makers and broadcasters with a host of tricky problems and unexplored opportunities. These new challenges come on top of the already familiar challenges of globalisation and concentration of ownership, which broadcasters and regulators have had to grapple with throughout the 1990s. In this part of the paper, eight separate, but interconnected challenges to the existing legal framework for broadcasting are outlined. The problem areas listed here separately and together create a new terrain to navigate in for those in charge of designing public policy and illuminate why it may be difficult to sustain existing regulatory regimes.

Convergence: The first problem area is the already mentioned convergence process that makes it difficult to sustain separate regulation for different media sectors. The situation whereby some media (e.g. broadcasting and film) has been subject to content regulation and others (e.g. press, telephone, Internet) has not, comes under pressure as all forms of content, in principle, can be distributed through any distribution channel. The situation manifests itself as a pressure towards ‘technology-neutral’ or ‘horizontal’ regulation, a push that more often than not comes from telecommunication interests eager to move into broadcasting. In the field of telecommunications, a complete deregulation and varying degrees of privatisation of the former monopolies had been achieved by the beginning of 1998. This in turn gave an enormous push to a commercial expansion that inevitably spilled over into the broadcasting sector (Hirsch and Petersen 1998:214).

‘1000 channels’: A second factor challenging policy-makers is the dramatic increase in the number of distribution channels stemming also from the digitalisation of the networks. Depending on the mode of digital distribution chosen, from 6-8 to several hundred new channels are being made available for broadcasting purposes. In 1995, the first of four planned Astra digital satellites was launched in Europe, and since then digital satellite services with enormous channel capacity have become available in most Western European states (Humphreys and Lang 1998:9, Hancock 1998). The rise in the number of channels removes the distribution bottleneck (Todreas 1999) and threatens to dwarf, or at least marginalise, the national broadcasting sector within each nation state. The proliferation of channels also contributes towards a further undermining of the justification for content regulation in broadcasting. Historically, the main justification for content regulation has been that the spectrum is a limited resource, and that the privilege of controlling part of it somehow has to be repaid in the form of specific programme services. In a situation where several hundred channels may become available, those opposing content regulation argue that it is inappropriate to demand, for example, that private broadcasters transmit a certain percentage of socially or culturally relevant programming.

Access and navigation systems: While some bottlenecks may be disappearing, other potential bottlenecks are emerging. A third and obvious challenge to policy-makers is to design a regulatory framework that can prevent potential abuses of monopoly power posed by new access and navigation systems. Conditional access systems (CAS) are the technical means by which content and service providers can recoup their investments either through subscription or through charges for individual programmes (European Commission, 1997: IV.2.3). Conditional access systems operate as electronic turnstiles into the home, controlling which broadcasts and other services viewers can receive, and which viewers and customers broadcasters and other service providers can reach. Without adequate regulation, broadcasters may use vertically integrated conditional access systems to discriminate against competitors and prevent viewers from accessing a full range of channels and other services (Levy 1999, Ch. 4). Navigation systems, such as electronic programme guides (corresponding to the browsers and search engines of the Internet) are necessary tools to help users manage the overwhelming range of information and services that may become available in the digital universe (European Commission 1997, IV.2.3). Such navigation systems, which are essential pieces of software in the set-top boxes through which consumers can receive digital television, may also become powerful tools for including and promoting some services and excluding others (Storsul 2000). Exclusive arrangements tying particular programme guides to particular service bundles may become a problem, requiring regulatory intervention in order to ensure fair, transparent and non-discriminatory listings of the services and programming of other operators.

The merging of broadcasting and commerce: A fourth development that requires the attention of regulators is the merging of broadcasting and media ‘content’ with other consumer products and services. Digital systems enable easier interaction between customers and suppliers and the transactional quality of the technology makes it possible to combine traditional activities in new ways. Financial transactions such as banking and shopping can for example be presented in association with traditional forms of broadcast television. This implies that the dividing line between ‘content’ and ‘products’ and between ‘broadcasting’ and ‘electronic commerce’ is becoming blurred (DTI/DCMS 1998, NOU 1999:26). The transactional nature of digital television also means that service providers and program-makers can gather detailed and sophisticated data about the audiences’ consumption habits, to the extent that the new technology has been characterised as a form of ‘spy-TV’ (Burke ed. 1999/2000). These processes raise issues that may require genuinely new approaches in law and regulation.

Globalisation: A fifth frequently cited reason why there is a need for media re-regulation is the challenge posed by the on-going globalisation process. While media systems in the early 21^st century are still primarily national and local in character, there has been a massive move towards internationalisation and globalisation over the past decade. The increase in distribution capacity will almost certainly function as a vehicle for increased US dominance of the European audio-visual sphere and challenges policy-makers to come up with schemes for increasing the production of domestic content. This issue is not only relevant for small countries, but also affects dominant European suppliers such as the UK media industry. As Carol Tongue notes, there are over 80 channels available on cable and satellite in the UK alone, yet the real investment in home-grown programming by them is almost negligible (1999:101).

Globalisation also put pressure on policy-makers in a more direct way. Observers agree that the emergence of large media conglomerates and expansion of cross-frontier media (satellites, Internet etc.) makes it increasingly complicated to regulate on the national level. The transnational media companies treat the media as a single global market with local subdivisions, a development that has been facilitated by the erosion of economic and legal barriers to cross-border transactions (Herman and McCheseney 1997, Green 1995). Stricter regulation in one country and region can result in a migration of economic activity to areas where the framework is more liberal, with adverse consequences for the former country or region. The consequence is a continuing pressure on policy-makers in the most strictly regulated market to liberalise, but also to implement international regulations, such as the European Television Directive, in a way that is acceptable both to the EU and to national operators.

Availability of content: The sixth problem facing regulators is how to respond to the rising prices on programming and the enormous inflation on films and sports events in particular. New and old operators in broadcasting engage in an aggressive bidding war for the most attractive content, and the massive amounts that pay-TV and the new digital satellite operators are willing to pay makes it difficult for traditional ‘free-TV’ to follow. At the same time, the real cost of content in general is rising and not falling. Although new production technology allows some savings to be made, the main costs are still people (writers, performers, designers etc.) and talent in all these areas continues to be scarce (Graham and Davies 1997:12, Todreas 1999:78). The making of television content continues to have high fixed costs, at the same time as they have very low marginal costs. For the regulators, the rising prices on content represent a dual problem. On the one hand this is a public interest problem in the sense that poorer segments of the population may be excluded from access to attractive content. On the other hand it is a problem for the national (public) broadcasters, which may experience a further marginalisation of their position when they loose attractive programming.

Concentration of ownership: The seventh problem area, which is related to the above, is the increasing degree of privatisation, concentration and mergers across different media markets. The 1980s and 1990s saw a flurry of acquisitions and mergers across the fields of telecommunication and broadcasting, encouraged by the removal of technical and regulatory barriers to market entry and the privatisation of national telecommunication services (above). Some of the new operators in the broadcasting field came from other business sectors, whereas others were media players seeking to diversify in the pursuit of economies of scale and economies of scope. Most enterprises backing commercial broadcasting were sizeable, sometimes giant - companies (Humphreys 1996: 202). Digitalisation further increases the concentration process as the high cost of expansion favours large entities. For example, the fixed costs of transmission, whether in renting on satellites, in establishing digital terrestrial broadcasting facilities or in installing fibre optic cables to the home, rule out all except the very large (Graham and Davies 1997:11-12).

The funding and remit of public broadcasters: The eight and final problem area included here concerns the future role for state owned and publicly funded broadcasting organisations. Already many of the above points have touched on this, but it is still worth paying particular attention to the key problems in this area. The challenges to policy makers in the field of public broadcasting are manifold. One challenge concerns how to define the future role and position of public broadcasters: should they continue to have a broad and comprehensive remit or should they move to a supplementary role whereby their main task would be to provide what is not be purveyed by commercial companies (Søndergaard 1998, 2000). Another issue concerns what position the public broadcasters should have in relation to the emerging digital universe. Because digital information can be endlessly edited, copied, stored, retrieved, redesigned and merged with other information, the process of digitalisation intensifies the pressure to diversify and pursue economies of scope (Graham and Davies 1997: 12). This in turn implies that public broadcasters are meeting competition in completely new fields and are themselves eager to diversify their activities. A third challenge concerns funding. The transfer to digital technology takes place in a climate where the finances of the traditional broadcasters are proving increasingly insufficient and where the subsidising of public broadcasting from the licence fee and the public purse is challenged by competitors nationally and on the European level. The system of licence fee funding may also be more difficult to justify as television looses its monopoly on video and Internet becomes another medium for watching TV (Todreas 1999, Steemers (ed.) 1998, Skogerbø 1998).

In this section, we turn to how Norwegian policy-makers have begun to respond to some of these problem areas, partly as a result of European legislation and partly in response to initiatives on the national level. An analysis of policy-making in Norway over the last couple of years reveals a high level of activity, a similar situation to that of other European countries. Below, the most important attempts at legislative reform in the field of broadcasting are outlined, the main point being to indicate the extent of the current changes and the degree to which the changes are provoked by trans-national or European developments. This is followed, in the next sections, by a detailed discussion of two key issues: the changing nature of media policy-making and the consequences of the legal reforms for public broadcasting.

The above list testifies to the immense activity within the field of broadcasting policy- making. In only a couple of years the whole regulatory system has come under scrutiny, to the extent that the very existence of a sector-specific ‘broadcasting legislation’ is being called into question. The re-examination does not only concern broadcasting; other aspects of media policy are also being reconsidered. A commission reviewing the constitutional paragraphs regarding freedom of speech reported in 1999 (NOU 1999: 27) and in early 2000 another Government-appointed commission proposed changes in the Norwegian system of press subsidies (NOU 2000:15). Changes have also been made in other areas such as political advertising (Ot prp nr 58, 1998-99) and film (Ot prp 8, 1997-98). In other words, it looks as though the whole set-up for media policy in Norway – as in many other countries - is being thoroughly and painstakingly re-examined. The technological and economic challenges associated with convergence have, along with other social and cultural developments, prompted action on many levels.

An analysis of the policy initiatives listed above give rise to several observations concerning the current regulatory climate. The first and most important point is that re-regulation still does not mean less regulation. As the above list indicates, the number of legal clauses placing obligations and restrictions on media operators continues to be high, and several new pieces of media legislation have been instigated in recent years. The resources allocated to ‘practical’ media regulation have also swelled. In Norway, a completely new regulatory agency has been instituted (the Media Ownership Authority) and existing regulatory agencies have expanded their staff and activities. It appears unlikely that the merging between broadcasting and telecommunication and the inclusion of ‘new media’ such as the Internet into the regulatory framework will lead to anything else than a further increase in activity. Thus, the empirical evidence contradicts arguments such as the one posed by Søndergaard (2000: 3): ‘the most immediate consequences of digitalisation will probably be a general decrease in state intervention in the electronic media system’.

A second observation is that the level of consensus over media policy remains high, at least within the Norwegian political establishment. The proliferation of new challenges and policy issues has not led to any fundamental new conflicts within the political sphere; it rather looks like the complexity of the current issues may erode previous distinctions between political adversaries. Norway recently experienced a change of government – from a centre coalition to a Labour government – without it having any effect at all on media policy issues. In the most recent annual media policy debate in Parliament many representatives touched upon issues such as convergence and digital television, but their arguments in these fields were careful and tentative. The only real political conflict turned out to be an ‘old’ issue: whether those who could not technically receive the second NRK channel NRK2 should pay a lower licence fee (Mediepolitisk redegjørelse 2000, debated in Parliament 26.05.2000).

A third observation concerns the nature of European influence on the re-regulation process. An analysis of the Norwegian attempts at regulatory reform in recent years reveals that, to a large extent, traditional solutions and national traditions in policy making prevail. The Norwegian regulatory response to digitalisation and convergence fits well with the pattern outlined by Levy (1999), who argues that each country adopts its own solutions. On the basis of a comparative study of broadcasting re-regulation in Britain, France and Germany he concludes that:

Levy also observes that ‘the approaches taken by opposing political parties within each individual country were generally closer than those between parties of the same political hue across different countries’ (: 100-101), an observation that supports the point made above about the prevailing political consensus in Norwegian media policy-making. Nevertheless, it could be the case that the influence of European media policy is greater than it appears at first sight. European regulations are generally implemented into Norwegian broadcasting regulation without much national debate and analysis, but there is still a movement in the direction of the standardised, least-common-denominator regulation that emanates from the EU. This gradual and passive adaptation to European regulations can be observed also in other areas, such as telecommunication policy (Skogerbø and Storsul 1999: 206).

A further point worth noting regarding the re-regulation process is that the bulk of the reform proposals presented so far are not so much intended to change as to preserve the traditional broadcasting system. It appears that at least in the short term, the political establishment in Norway is placed firmly on the side of those opposing that the magnitude of the new technological development necessitates liberalisation and radical reform. This is seen, for example, in the proposal to establish terrestrial digital television, a proposal that on the face of it appears to be forward-looking and embrace new times in broadcasting. Since terrestrial systems only allows for a limited increase in distribution capacity while granting the whole population access to high quality digital services, such a network nevertheless has the advantage of providing a solid argument for the continued regulation of broadcasting in the public interest. The 1999 Government White Paper on digital television was indeed explicit about the need to sustain some form of content regulation. It argued that ‘in the foreseeable future’ such regulation would be necessitated by the ‘scarcity of frequencies in terrestrial networks’ (para 1.2).

Despite the fact that many of the regulatory initiatives are intended to protect existing elements of the broadcasting structure, the proposals contain some novel features. Compared with earlier forms of policy-making in the media field, recent policy proposals pay more attention to detail at the same time as they design policies that are more flexible than ‘older’ forms of regulation. It appears that media policy making is moving from the general to the particular, from a broad cultural-policy based regulation where many different aspects of the broadcasters’ operations were under scrutiny by regulators, to a legislative system that limits itself to specific issues but addresses these in more detail. It also appears that more effort has gone into securing that the proposals may actually work. The new restrictions on ownership in the media are a case in point. Instead of setting fixed levels for how much one shareholder can control and leave it to the operators to comply with the restrictions, the new law empowers the regulatory body to determine whether a certain acquisition violates pluralism in the media. Experiences from various countries have determined that such regulation – where the regulator plays a more active role - is often more effective than ‘old-style’ quota-based regulation. The latter form may, as Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem (1996: 290) has commented, actually prove to be a barrier to effective supervision. The reason is that ‘they limit flexibility in reacting to unforeseen or new questions and make it possible for the broadcasting industry to find loopholes.’

The trend towards more limited and specific regulation and the implementation of more flexible regulatory instruments is in part a response to the fact that previous media policies were often unsuccessful. One reason why current media regulation has lost legitimacy is the fact that it has often proved inefficient and unable to handle the problems it purported to control (Syvertsen 1992, 1996, Hoffmann-Riem 1996). This is partly due to the fact that policy aims were often stated in very general and very ambitious terms (‘strengthen Norwegian cultural identity’, ‘improve quality and diversity in television’ etc.) while the legal instruments were not very sophisticated and therefore of limited use. Indeed, on the basis of a comparative study of broadcasting regulation in six countries, Hoffmann-Riem speculates that much broadcasting regulation was never meant to work (1996: 332, see also Hoffmann-Riem 1992:198). Feintuck (1999:118) makes a similar point:

In essence, it might seem that the regulatory system does little more than legitimise the outcome of market tendencies within the media, being left with more symbolic than substantive significance (see also Høyer 1999).

Another reason why polices have been unsuccessful is that they have been implemented too late. Several of the recent policy-initiatives are explicitly intended to circumvent the tendency whereby policies are past their sell-by date once they are put into practice. In the case of the regulation of sports rights (implementation of the 1997 EU-Directive) the Government stated, for example, that exclusive access to the most important events had yet not been a problem in Norway. It was nevertheless seen to be ‘important to be ahead of such a development in order to protect the television viewers’ (Ot prp nr 2, 1999-2000). A similar phrase was used in the media pluralism regulation where it was argued that the present concentration of ownership had not yet had any detrimental effects. The intention was to establish restrictions before the problem had arisen (Ot prp nr 30 1996/97).

These measures again testify to the essentially defensive nature of current Norwegian media policy. It appears that the aim is not only to defend national ‘content’ and ‘culture’ against Anglo-American influence, but also to defend the traditional media proprietors and institutions against newcomers. Indeed, the super-theme that emerges in much current Norwegian policy-making concerns the defence of the most traditional institution of them all: public service broadcasting.

As indicated in the beginning of this paper, the situation for public service broadcasting remains one of the most poignant issues of the burgeoning digital era. Arguments over whether public service broadcasting is worth ‘saving’ and whether public broadcasters should be allowed to expand their activities enters into almost any discussion on media and broadcasting regulation. But the issue is again more complicated that a simple ‘for’ and ‘against’ public service. First, what is meant by public service varies considerable from country to country and appears to be constantly redefined in each individual setting (Syvertsen 1999). Consequently, it is necessary to go beyond the superficial arguments and examine critically what is meant by public service broadcasting in each case. Second, it appears that those arguing most strongly in defence of public service are often those who will go furthest in eroding the distinctions between public and private enterprises. Thus, the process of protecting ‘public service’ may have as its consequence that the object of protection becomes more and more indistinguishable from whatever it is protected from.

On the face of it, it appears that public service broadcasting is at least symbolically safe in the hands of Norwegian policy-makers. Indeed, the desire to save and protect public service broadcasting is reflected in all the policy proposals listed above and runs through all other current media political documents. In the White Paper on digital television, for example, one of the main justifications for a terrestrial network is that this would be the best way to protect existing public broadcasters. If digital satellite broadcasting became the dominant platform, the White Paper stated, Norwegian public broadcasters would have to compete with many other services for the public’s attention and this could mean ‘marginalisation in the long term’ (St meld nr 46, 1998-99, para 6.2.). The commission discussing ‘convergence’ was likewise unanimous on the need to protect public service broadcasting, to the extent that endorsing public service could be seen as one of its guiding principles. The commission observed that the enormous increase in audio-visual output had led many to question the need for public service broadcasting, but claim that this argument is misguided. Instead it argues that the development towards convergence ‘reinforces the need for public service broadcasting’ and that it is important to disseminate ‘public service principles’ into other sectors of public and cultural life (NOU 1999:26: 162, 167).

The commitment to public service broadcasting as one of the fundamental principles of Norwegian media policy began when private broadcasting was first introduced in the 1980s. For lack of a better term policy-makers have since used ‘the defence of public service broadcasting’ to legitimise all and any changes in broadcasting policy-making. The concept of ‘public service broadcaster’ has been extended to cover not only the private television channel TV2 and the radio channel P4, but private local and regional operators (Syvertsen 1999). Needless to say, the stretching of the term public service to cover almost all national television developments have led to a situation where it has become increasingly difficult to identify the salient ‘principles’ of the concept. This becomes even more difficult in the light of the recent media policy initiatives. In these policy-proposals, it becomes very clear that the preservation of public service means different things in different contexts – without this being a topic of discussion and without the consequences in terms of policy-making being spelt out. In some contexts, such as in the report of the commission discussion convergence, ‘public service’ is clearly taken to mean ‘non-commercial’. The commission argues for example that public service must be preserved because it represents an antidote to commercialisation and because public broadcasters indirectly function as standard-setters versus private operators (NOU 1999:26: 163-64). In many other contexts, however, ‘public broadcasting’ is used as a synonym for ‘Norwegian broadcasting’, and protecting all public service broadcasters – private and public - is perceived as a remedy against globalisation. In this case the point seems to be to protect Norwegian-produced ‘content’ of any standard, against ‘content’ produced by foreign operators (see, for example, St meld nr 46, 1998-99, para 6.2.).

A second and more substantial problem lies in the discussion of what should be the future role of the original public broadcasters, the previous monopoly institutions that to a large degree are still funded through license fees. This is one of the most contested issues on the European level, and the signals emitting from European policy-making bodies are contradictory. On the one hand, there are the European publishers and the private broadcasters that, with some support from the EU Competition Directorate DGIV, has argued that the public broadcasters distorts competition and that the licence fee in many cases constitutes illegal state aid. These interests argue in favour of a more limited remit for publicly owned broadcasters and a system whereby public funding is allocated only to clearly specified and tightly costed ‘public service tasks’. On the other hand, there are the arguments of the broadcasting companies themselves and a broad alliance of political interests claiming that it should be up to each member state to determine the funding and remit of public broadcasters. This sentiment was expressed in the so-called Amsterdam protocol on public broadcasting adopted unanimously by the member states heads of government in 1997 and a similar resolution accepted between the Culture and Audiovisual ministers of the European Community in 1998. This latter resolution also supported the right of public broadcasters to offer a wide range of programming and encouraged them to diversify their activities in the digital age (Siune and Hultén 1998: 34-35, Levy 1999: 95-97, NOU 199:26: 165-166).

In the context of Norwegian policy-making, the thrust of recent proposals are all in the direction of allowing the licence-fee funded broadcaster NRK the leeway it needs to compete successfully in the digital market. This implies, among other things, that the NRK will be allowed to move into areas that have previously been considered out of limit for a non-commercial operator and that the distinctions between the publicly owned and privately operators are further eroded. It is argued, for example, that while the NRK should still be expected to uphold ‘public service principles’ in the digital universe, this would not necessarily mean mixed scheduling. The white paper on digital television states that the principles of public service broadcasting should not apply to each of the NRK’s individual channels but to ‘the institution’s total output in television’ (St meld 46, 1998-99, para 6.1.1). In a different proposal, the NRK is praised for having spent significant resources (from the licence fee) on its internet service and encouraged to move further in this direction (NOU 1999:26: 167-168). The NRK has also, as we have seen, achieved a liberalisation in its sponsorship regulations and persuaded Parliament to lift restrictions on its involvement in commercial activities. All policy initiatives thus support the argument that NRK should be allowed reap profits from the increasing commercial exploitation of television (NOU 1999:26 :166).

In all these cases, however, the schizophrenic relationship with the term ‘public service’ is visible yet again. The defenders of public broadcasting in Norway, as elsewhere, perceive the gradual commercialisation of the NRK as one of the few possible remedies against a wholesale commercialisation of the media system. The policy-makers are of course aware of the problems inherent in such a strategy but see few alternatives. The result is nevertheless some paradoxical claims regarding the future of public service. The proposal to allow NRK to involve itself more directly in commercial activities, stresses for example that this is necessary in order to defend the NRK’s position as a non-commercial broadcaster (Ot prp nr. 55, 1988-89, para 3.1.). Likewise, when the proposal to liberalise the NRK’s sponsorship regulations was debated in Parliament, the Minister of Culture stated that if the proposal would give NRK more income from sponsorship, this would mean that ‘public service broadcasting in Norway had been strengthened’ (Odelstingsdebatt 30.11.99).

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