RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

service'. While the state machme ргорег retains a number of very direct mechanisms for intervention in the policies and programming of the broadcasters , for example the vetting of кеу news personnel by the secret police , the power to ban programs anđ so on, the reality has been that neither the government in the narrow sense nor the state machine ргорег have been heavily involved in the daily running of broadcasting. The. actual control of the activities of radio and television has been in the hands of special organizations set up for the purpose . The BBC and the IBA (Independent Broadcasting Authority , the body which has final control over the activities of commercial broadcasters) аге not part of the formal state machine although their membership and activities аге regulated by a definite legal framework . The Chairs and the members of these organizations аге appointed by the Government, and have , historically , been drawn from the ranks of the 'great anđ the good', distinguished citizens from various spheres of life . They have not been party political appointees ; there is no mechanism such as exists in West Germany to ensure that their political complexion reflects votes cast in elections and a change of government does not mean a change in the membership of the Board . These Boards exercise general supervision of the program-making institutions but have not, traditionally, been very active in proposing ог preventing particular items . This system of inđirect and relatively loose control meant that a broadcasting regime in which final power lay in the hands of what in most of the world would be calleđ the 'Hinister of the Interior', whose other responsibilities аге police and prisons , and in which the overall program budgets were determined by state subsidy in the case of the BBC ог by taxation policies in the case of the ITV companies , was never the direct creature of апу particular political party . Of course , there were historic cases dating back to the General Stnke of 1926 in which the identity between the mterests of the broadcasters and the governing party were eviđent to all, but these remaineđ exceptional responses to exceptional situations. The plain fact is that for most of the time the politicians were guite content to let the broadcasters get on with making programs of their own choice , while retaining the 'backstop' powers which, while very reai, were seldom exercised . The last few уеагз have seen the fairly rapid erosion of this comfortable state of affairs . In case after case the government has mtervened more ог less directly to impose its will upon the broadcasters . The men appointeđ to the leadmg posts m the Board of Governors of the BBC have been closely Imked to the government . The Boarđ of Governors itself moved to censor a program about Northern Ireland , provoking a strike by its journalists m protest . The Board sacked the Dmector General

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