Beyond Convergence: Understanding Programming Strategies of Public Broadcasters in Competitive Environments

Current regulatory initiatives in the European Commission take a highly critical stance towards public service broadcasting. In the context of this development, the debate about the performance of the German PSBs in a competitive market environment is of some interest. The programmes broadcast by the German PSBs show a remarkable distinctiveness that runs contrary to the predictions of economic theory on programme choices which would rather expect a state of excessive similarity. Drawing on an in-depth case study of one of the major German public broadcasting corporations, it is argued that the distinctiveness of the public broadcasting programmes is the result of an interplay between institutional and organizational factors as well as of economic forces. These findings could have implications for regulatory debate about `dual' television markets.