“
impact of these measures has not, however, marginalized public broadcasters; on the contrary, the signs are quite encouraging from the public broadcasters’ point of view. First, public broadcasters clearly retain substantial – and in several cases improving – market shares, at least in the countries of northern Europe where the public service tradition has been most resilient. By 2004, the public broadcasters still dominated the national television markets in Britain, Sweden and Norway.6 Second, most European countries, including the UK and the Scandinavian countries, uphold some form of licence fee or public funding, and few governments have actually abolished or are seriously discussing the abolition of the licence fee.7 Third, the social and political legitimacy of public broadcasters remain strong in national and European politics. Although the private broadcasters regularly challenge the right of public broadcasters to provide popular programming and develop attractive digital services, national parliaments and the EU Commission have on several occasions defended their rights to do so8 (Levy, 1999; Papathanassopoulos, 2002; Steemers, 1999; Syvertsen, 2004).
”
”