Dutch Public Broadcast
outsourcing more and more programming to independent production companies
In the Netherlands, the NPO (Dutch Public Broadcast) has been working like this for a long time, and takes this even further: It also has a bunch of sub-broadcasters who are members of the NPO, but all of them produce their own content, and promote their own interests. This stems from historic "pillarisation" in the community, where every vertical segment of the population (Protestant, Catholic, Socialist, Liberal/Neutral) had it's own shops, schools, political parties, etc. When TV came around, most of them also got their own broadcasting company.
Over time, as pillarisation broke down and lines were blurred, the distinction became less prominent. These days, most of them still exist (some of them renamed or merged, if they were similar). The sub-broadcasters are all their own entity, and are partly funded by their members. The NPO holds the broadcasting rights, and does programming and government fund distribution primarily based on the member count of sub-broadcasters. The rules and regulations for sub-broadcasters are determined by law. The sub-broadcasters produce content, and are responsible for the actual content.
This has a great effect on public broadcasting, as it is a reflection of the population. For example, the EO (Evangelical broadcaster) still does the sunday morning church service broadcasts. That doesn't interest me, but it is extremely important to a significant part of the population, and would have trouble existing without this system. The EO also makes a lot of great human interest programmes (in my opinion), which stems from their mission, likely wouldn't exist otherwise, but benefits way more people than their core audience.
Another part of this system, is that less represented parts of the population have a chance of making it to public broadcasting. All they need is a certain member threshold, and they are entitled to their slot in the programming. Fairly recently a right-wing broadcaster called "Ongehoord Nederland" (Unheard Netherlands) made this threshold. Do i agree with their views? No. Have they been in trouble for spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories? Yes. Do i think it's a good thing they exist? Yes, actually. I will always celebrate freedom of speech, especially if it's government-funded. This has also sparked *a lot* of public debate, which means both sides of the coin are represented in public discourse.
As you can probably tell, i really like this system. They are a little strapped for cash at the moment, but it will always be an uphill battle to secure funding for public broadcasting, i'm pretty sure that's universally true across the world.
