La Europa de dos velocidades reflejada en la financiación del servicio audiovisual público: un análisis basado en los presupuestos

RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73 – Pages 1054 to 1071 [Research Funded] | DOI:10.4185/RLCS-2018-1296en | ISSN 1138-5820 | Year 2018 http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1296/55en.html Página 1054 How to cite this article in bibliographies / References O Juanatey-Boga, VA Martínez-Fernández, M Rodríguez-Castro (2018): “The Two-Speed Europe reflected in Public Service Media Funding: a budget based analysis”. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73, pp. 1054 to 1071. http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1296/55en.html DOI: 10.4185/RLCS-2018-1296en The Two-Speed Europe reflected in Public Service Media Funding: a budget based analysis Óscar Juanatey-Boga [CV] [ ORCID] [ GS] Profesor del Área de Comercialización e Investigación de Mercados. Universidade da Coruña (España) [email protected] Valentín-Alejandro Martínez-Fernández [CV] [ ORCID] [ GS] Profesor Titular de Comercialización e Investigación de Mercados. Universidade da Coruña (España) [email protected] Marta Rodríguez-Castro [CV] [ ORCID] [ GS] Investigadora predoctoral del grupo Novos Medios. Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (España) m.[email protected] Abstract Introduction. European Public Service Media (PSM) faces today challenges regarding innovation, legitimacy and funding. This paper analyzes the evolution of European PSM funding between 2010 and 2016, considering its need for legitimization and update of the different funding models within the EU. Methodology. We analyzed the evolution of the budgets of the European PSM in relation to inhabitants, households and GDP in terms of purchasing power parity. Results. The results confirm the impact of the economic crisis on the budgets of the European PSM. Two triennials can be identified: the first one (2010-2013), marked by budgetary constrictions (-4.1%), and the second one (2013-2016), which shows a slight recovery (4%). We also highlight the differences between Northern and Southern Europe. Conclusions. Ultimately, we conclude that a reformulation of the European PSM business models is required in order to achieve greater stability, adequacy and legitimacy. Keywords Public Service Media; funding; license fee; legitimacy; comparative analysis Contents 1. Introduction. 1.1. The challenges of public service media in the digital environment. 1.2. Funding models of the European public service media. 2. Methodology. 3. Results. 3.1. Funding by country. 3.2. Funding per capita. 3.3. Funding in relation to households. 3.4. Funding in relation to the economies size. 4. Conclusions. 5. References. Translation by Marta Rodríguez Castro RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73 – Pages 1054 to 1071 [Research Funded] | DOI:10.4185/RLCS-2018-1296en | ISSN 1138-5820 | Year 2018 http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1296/55en.html Página 1055 1. Introduction The European Public Service Media (PSM) has been facing emerging challenges for decades, forcing it to reflect on the role it plays for society as a whole in order to be able to adapt to a changing and unpredictable environment. Some of the most recurring problems that arose in the 1990s, related to triple crisis of identity, funding and operational problems (Achille, 1994) are still part of the current list of challenges mustered over the last years, derived mainly from the adaptation to the new digital ecosystem, which Bardoel and Ferrell Lowe (2007) named as the transition from Public Service Broadcasting to Public Service Media. 1.1. Challenges to Public Service Media in the Digital Environment The current main challenges faced by the governance and the activity of PSM are concentrated on the fields of innovation, legitimation and the crisis of the different funding models that can be found in Europe. The former is manifested, for instance, in the emergence of regulatory mechanisms such as the public value tests, used to decide on the approval of PSM new services proposals, mostly related to new media, in an attempt to legitimize their pioneering activity in the field of innovation (Moe & Donders, 2011, Rodríguez-Castro, 2017). The efforts of PSM to continuously renovate their legitimacy in front of their different stakeholders have been greatly influenced by the pressures ejected from the media private sector. One of the most raised arguments by private media is the obsolescence of the market failure logic: a non-regulated, purely commercial audiovisual market would lead to market failure, a situation where some majoritarian tastes would be overrepresented, while minority or less attractive content to the public would be underrepresented (Brown, 1996). This lack of content would justify the existence of PSM. Even though the market failure argument seems to have been sidelined, the truth is that it is still part of the current debate around PSM, with regard to the transformations derived from the volatile digital environment, where the offer (both free and paid for) multiplies and, at the same time, it is personalized, paving the way for PSM critics. In Ireland, during the celebration of the Forum on Broadcasting in 2002, the private sector lobby stated its willingness to marginalize the activity of RTÉ regarding matters of audience, content and funding (Coppes & Saeys, 2006), limiting the Irish PSM organization to those sectors that could not be reached by private media. On the other hand, this rhetoric also came to light during the Royal Charter renovation process in 2015. Justin Lewis (2015) criticized the new assumed position of the public consultation document elaborated by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, as it returned to the market failure argument to consider the possibility of modifying the BBC’s public service mission and public purposes in order to focus its activity in specific, underserved audiences (Department for Culture, Media & Sport, 2015). Likewise, the supporters of PSM have responded to the attacks targeted at the reduction of its activity by employing, among others, the value for money argument (Hultén, 2003). Ferrell Lowe and Berg (2013) have analized the economic data of the main European public service broadcasters and, after contrasting this data with the results obtained by their private counterparts, they have concluded that the former leverage their budgets better than the latter, thus refuting the overcompensation argument of PSM critics. Moreover, this performance is not measured just in economic terms, but is also conceived as the creation of social and public value (Crespo, Martínez & Campos, 2017). Consequently, the social benefits that must be provided by PSM come along with other economic benefits, such as the contribution to a national audiovisual market or the promotion of innovation and talent (Bardoel & d’Haenens, 2007; Ferrell Lowe & Berg, 2013; Bonini & Pais, 2017). RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73 – Pages 1054 to 1071 [Research Funded] | DOI:10.4185/RLCS-2018-1296en | ISSN 1138-5820 | Year 2018 http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1296/55en.html Página 1056 After the protests of the private sector were brought to the European Commission in the 1990s, the Commission had to mediate the conflict between critics and supporters of PSM in the digital context. Thus, the Commission applied its competency principles to broadcasting policy (European Commission, 2009), at the same time that it put pressure on Member States to legitimize its PSM organizations through the adaptation of their public service mission to the new digital ecosystem, as well as through increased accountability to their main stakeholders (Donders, 2010). The protests of the private lobby, which, as we have pointed before, have been taking place for two decades, were intensified by the 2008 economic crisis. The impact of the recession on the advertising market was drastic, and print media outlets found themselves among the most affected sector (Juanatey, Martínez & Castellanos, 2017). On the other hand, within a context of advertising income decrease, digital media experienced an increase on this kind of income (Ferrell Lowe & Berg, 2013). This shift of advertising revenue triggered all the alarms in print media outlets, which then started to transfer their activity to the new media. Public service broadcasters where then undergoing their own process of creation of their online space, in a quite successful way, which was understood by private media as a drawback for their digital transition and detonated a new wave of protests to the European Commission. To this continuous legitimation questioning of PSM, we must sum up the crisis that their diverse funding models are undergoing. 1.2. Funding Models of European Public Service Media The digitalization process of public service broadcasters overlapped with major budget cutbacks as a consequence of the economic crisis, as well as with greater demands for transparency in resource management (Moe, 2011). Despite the diversity of funding models present in the European public media system, all of them were impacted by the recession, leading to an ongoing debate around the future of public service media funding. One first approach to the different funding models can be drawn from their sources of income. In their study, Ferrel Lowe & Berg (2013) have identified four main funding sources in European public service media organizations: licence fee, direct subsidy, advertisement and a subscription and pay-per- view system, to which we should add another commercial income streams such as the commercialization of broadcasting rights. While the two first sources are conformed out of public funding and thus favor an orientation of the organization towards citizens; the last two income sources shift the balance towards a consumer orientation. Moreover, the excessive weight of commercial income can lead to a greater impact on the general budgets, due to the decrease, for example, of advertisement revenues, especially in times of crisis. Ramsey (2017) points at this situation in the Irish scenario, as in this country television advertising revenues dropped 10% between 2007 and 2013, while in the last years digital advertisement and sponsorship have also decrease a 11%. Licence fee, with its different variations, is nowadays the most extended funding source in Europe. This system provides more stability, it is perceived as a transparent income stream and increases the duty to be accountable to citizens. Even though the licence fee is not exempt from problematics such as evasion rates (O’Hagan & Jennigns, 2003; Ramsey, 2017), it does count with a better reputation than direct subsidy. A funding model based on direct subsidy can be more vulnerable to political pressures, affecting both PSM editorial content and their budgetary stability, more subjected to the determination of the government in power. The differences between both systems can be exemplified by the case of the Netherlands, where in 2000 the licence fee was replaced by a new model based on direct public subsidy (Benson & Powers, 2011), a change that led to a major drop in NPO’s budget RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73 – Pages 1054 to 1071 [Research Funded] | DOI:10.4185/RLCS-2018-1296en | ISSN 1138-5820 | Year 2018 http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1296/55en.html Página 1057 during the first implementation years and which was questioned because of the increase of vulnerability and the decrease of stability. The ongoing changes affecting European PSM funding systems can be studied on the basis of the typology proposed by Berg & Lund (2012). These authors list three different political approaches to PSM: 1) the market-oriented model, characterized by the outsourcing or commissioning of services; 2) the conventional model, marked by in-house production and self-management; and 3) the competitive model, in which PSM compete directly with their commercial counterparts. The market-oriented model is gaining ground in an environment which has traditionally been the kingdom of the conventional model. In Denmark, for instance, exists a combination of these two models, affecting the way the licence fee is being managed and allocated, as it is not only used to fund the Danish public service broadcaster, the DR, but also other commercial initiatives, such as the regional services of TV2 or the radio 24syv. The licence fee is actually one of the most discussed issues within the debate on the future of European public service media. The charge of a licence fee on the grounds of the ownership of one television set constitutes nowadays an obsolete idea, considering the new consumption ways (Herzog & Karppinen, 2014). The future of the licence fee is being defined by three alternative options (Nissen, 2006): its expansion to all kinds of devices that can be used to access PSM content, as it happened in Sweden; its complete removal, being substituted by direct subsidy (the Netherlands); or its conversion into a special tax applicable to all citizens or household, an option that has been implemented in Germany and Finland. In other countries, such as Ireland, the social and political debate is still taking place. The reflections on the current situation of the licence fee have also led to innovative proposals, such as the one by Bonini & Pais (2017), who pose the idea of merging this traditional funding source with crowdfunding strategies, allowing citizens to choose in which programs to invest a quota of up to a 20% of the licence fee rate. This idea would entail an increase in structural participation of society in the management of its public service media organizations. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has recently published a report where four essential principles for the funding system of PSM organizations are established: the stability and suitability of the budgets; independence from political interferences; fairness and grounds; and transparency and accountability to the citizens (EBU, 2017). If those four criteria are met, the funding system of this PSM organization would contribute to its legitimation and to its consolidation as the media spaces with the greater autonomy and independence from external influences in the whole current media ecosystem (Karppinen & Moe, 2016). On balance, in order to achieve strong and legitimated PSM organizations, an appropriate funding, able to adapt to the volatile context, is required. This paper is embedded in the studies on funding, regulation and legitimation of the European public service media system, by analyzing the budgetary data of the PSM organizations of the 28 member States of the European Union between 2010 and 2016. 2. Methodology Besides the theoretical approach that was described in the previous preceding paragraphs, in order to develop this research, we have also analyzed the financial data of all the European public service media organizations from 2010 to 2016, retrieved from the European Audiovisual Observatory’s database (EAO, 2017). This information has been complemented by the publications of the European Broadcasting Union and the annual management reports of the PSM organizations, which in some cases have been used to obtain missing data. Thus, we opted for a research design based on the temporal RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73 – Pages 1054 to 1071 [Research Funded] | DOI:10.4185/RLCS-2018-1296en | ISSN 1138-5820 | Year 2018 http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1296/55en.html Página 1058 analysis of three variables (total revenue, public revenue and other revenue) in the 28 Member States of the European Union, conforming a descriptive statistical analysis that allows for the comparison of the behavior of the different territories regarding the funding of their public service media. In order to sharpen the comparative analysis of the different funding models and countries, it was necessary to ponder the revenues of each of the organizations and countries with respect to the population, households and Gross Domestic Product in terms of Purchase Power Parity (GDP/PPP), making use of the data retrieved from the Eurostat, because of its absolute acknowledgement within the research community and its official character. Thus, revenue data of European PSM were crossed with other socioeconomic variables that define each country for all the years of the period studied (which correspond to the years of the present decade with available data), allowing for the accurate identification of the current situation and trends on the funding of public service media in the European Union. 3. Results The first issue that was noticed after analyzing the data from the funding of European PSM was the fact that these organizations have been subjected to and influence by economic variables and upheavals experimented by the economies of their territories and, therefore, it can be appreciated the impact of the economic recession that acutely stroke Western economies during the last years of the past decade and the beginning of the current one. Nevertheless, as the results that we will expose in this paper show, it should be pointed out that the behavior of the studied countries during this period presents relevant divergences regarding the funding of its PSM system and the impact of the economic crisis. Because of this, after a first aggregated analysis of the data of the European Union, it is absolutely necessary to formulate a deeper analysis of the data of all the studied countries. Table 1. Evolution of Public Service Media Funding in the EU (in millions of Euros) EU Total Public income Other income Total income 2010 25.732,2 7.886,5 33.618,8 2011 25.621,7 7.700,0 33.321,7 2012 25.503,5 7.341,5 32.845,0 2013 25.305,7 6.926,8 32.232,6 2014 25.710,8 7.328,3 33.039,0 2015 26.305,9 7.482,1 33.699,1 2016 26.034,3 7.458,8 33.519,5 %Δ16/10 1,2 -5,4 -0,3 %Δ13/10 -1,7 -12,2 -4,1 %Δ16/13 2,9 7,7 4,0 Source: personal processing of EAO data. An initial approach to the evolution of the budgets of the European public service broadcasters during the current decade, reflected in the data from 2010 and 2016 in Table 1, leads to thinking that during these years a period of absolute stability took place, as the total revenues only varied a miniscule - 0,3% from 2010 to 2016; in other words, this revenues practically remained unchanged. RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73 – Pages 1054 to 1071 [Research Funded] | DOI:10.4185/RLCS-2018-1296en | ISSN 1138-5820 | Year 2018 http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1296/55en.html Página 1059 However, this apparent stagnation hides an evolution with two differentiated stages. The first one was a three-year period of continued drops on PSM funding, with an income decrease of 4,1% from 2010 and 2013. This was followed by a growth of a 4% in the next three years, from 2013 to 2016, an increase that redressed the previous economic contraction, returning the funding volume practically to the initial conditions. If we pay attention to the breakdown of the data retrieved from the EAO between public income and other income, where the first item refers to the funding received through the different establish mechanisms for the provision of funds for public service broadcasting, and the second one encapsulates primarily commercial income sources, such as advertisement, sponsorship, the sales of their own content, and other similar revenues: we find a similar situation as the one shown by analysis of the aggregated data, although it should be pointed out that in this case the major drop that affected the variable conceptualized as “other income” in the first three-year period, of more than a 12% decrease, has not been corrected in the following three years, where the increase was only of a 7,7%. This was a consequence of different factors, including the fiercer competition for the advertising pie, as well as other entrenched phenomena, such as the Internet, and others in ongoing development, such as on demand platforms like Netflix or HBO. In order to compensate this situation, public income have experienced in the last three years a funding improvement (2,9%) which softens with certain margin the previous drop in the first triennial analyzed. 3.1. Funding by country A second approach to the analysis of the funding of public service broadcasting in the European Union demonstrates the rise of diverging behaviors between countries in the evolution of such funding during the past years, as reflected in Table 2 and Graph 1. Thus, the numbers clearly show the trend that is also present in other fields and sectors, and which has been named as the two-speed Europe (European Commission, 2017). On the one hand, the countries of the South of Europe, mostly, have experienced a greater convulsion during the financial crisis, in some cases even needing the so-called “rescues” from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In this group we include countries such as Greece, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and even Italy and Ireland (which was also rescued), as well as most of Eastern Europe countries, such as Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Croatia or Slovenia. All these countries registered drastic cutbacks on the funding of their public service media organizations in the analyzed period, with major percentage drops which in many cases reach double-digit decrease, and are unable to be redressed with the generally modest increase of the last years, except maybe in the case of Italy, a country that in the last year of the study, from 2015 to 2016, has experienced a mayor revenue increase. On the other hand, the so called Northern Europe, including mainly the Baltic and Scandinavian countries (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Belgium) have modestly increased the revenues of their public service media organizations during the last years. Other countries with powerful economies, such as Germany, the United Kingdom and France, have also experienced certain growths in PSM funding, although in a subtler way. Behind the abovementioned figure of the practically null variation value for the European Union between 2016 and 2010, which seems to show a near-absolute stability, lies the absolute imbalance between the behavior of this two kinds of country profiles subjected to be typified within the European Union: Northern Europe vs. Southern Europe. This represents, as it has been already pointed out before, the two-speed Europe, also in the field of public service media funding. RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73 – Pages 1054 to 1071 [Research Funded] | DOI:10.4185/RLCS-2018-1296en | ISSN 1138-5820 | Year 2018 http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1296/55en.html Página 1060 Table 2. Public Service Media Revenues by country (in millions of Euros) State 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 %Δ16/10 Austria 971,2 991,6 1.001,9 1.008,1 984,3 978,1 968,7 -0,3 Belgium 716,1 726,5 765,7 775,9 795,9 782,6 787,3 9,9 Bulgaria 66,2 63,9 65,3 62,1 62,1 62,5 61,0 -7,9 Croatia 202,1 190,1 188,9 183,1 179,7 180,0 179,7 -11,1 Cyprus 45,0 36,8 37,7 30,8 31,7 30,8 33,2 -26,2 Czech Republic 359,6 340,6 345,0 337,2 330,9 326,5 323,5 -10,0 Denmark 806,7 829,1 861,8 888,9 923,4 893,3 916,0 13,5 Estonia 28,4 28,3 28,5 30,5 29,4 33,6 40,3 41,9 Finland 420,0 432,5 456,1 469,1 475,6 472,0 473,2 12,7 France 4.378,5 4.568,5 4.658,7 4.490,7 4.497,8 4.479,6 4.576,0 4,5 Germany 9.034,5 8.787,2 8.591,2 8.823,5 9.445,9 9.212,4 9.177,7 1,6 Greece 386,0 328,8 n.a. n.a. 175,6 182,0 190,3 -50,7 Hungary 177,6 238,4 302,0 300,5 279,6 289,2 299,7 68,8 Ireland 408,5 388,1 374,0 364,4 364,3 369,9 374,3 -8,4 Italy 2.821,0 2.825,0 2.625,0 2.562,0 2.594,8 2.493,1 2.809,5 -0,4 Latvia 21,7 21,5 22,5 24,0 26,9 26,6 26,5 22,1 Lithuania 17,3 19,1 20,7 20,9 22,2 25,1 32,9 90,2 Luxembou rg n.a. n.a. 4,6 5,0 5,3 5,6 5,9 n.a. Malta 8,2 9,1 10,1 9,6 10,3 12,2 11,7 42,7 Netherland s 857,2 855,9 864,5 834,0 855,0 848,4 888,2 3,6 Poland 521,5 471,4 383,4 427,5 428,7 460,7 410,2 -21,3 Portugal 309,0 317,0 259,0 234,0 213,5 211,5 215,2 -30,4 Romania 230,6 230,1 223,8 214,0 215,1 205,5 194,4 -15,7 Slovakia 101,9 114,5 97,5 100,5 104,1 112,9 115,7 13,5 Slovenia 133,5 109,8 118,9 116,8 117,9 118,3 118,6 -11,2 Spain 2.794,2 2.572,1 2.165,2 1.953,0 1.810,0 1.937,4 2.035,6 -27,1 Sweden 726,2 772,5 833,3 830,9 828,5 833,7 867,4 19,4 United Kingdom 7.076,1 7.053,4 7.539,6 7.135,4 7.230,7 8.115,7 7.386,9 4,4 EU total 33.618, 8 33.321, 7 32.845, 0 32.232, 6 33.039, 0 33.699, 1 33.519, 5 -0,3 Source: personal processing of EAO data. Thus, according to Graph 1, the variation on revenues of the European Union captures a practically null value, with a certain centrality on the graph (practically half of the countries are placed above the average, while the other half is placed below it), although it can be noted how countries like Greece, Portugal, Spain or Cyprus present cutbacks above 25% (above 50% in the case of Greece), even if, as it has been already pointed out, they have experienced a slight increase during the last years. However, RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73 – Pages 1054 to 1071 [Research Funded] | DOI:10.4185/RLCS-2018-1296en | ISSN 1138-5820 | Year 2018 http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1296/55en.html Página 1061 this is not enough to mitigate the important drop that took place during the years of the financial crisis, which hit those countries the hardest, forcing them to establish austerity policies that have had a major impact on the funding of public service media. Graph 1. Percentage change of revenues by country 2016/2010 Source: personal processing of EAO data. 3.2. Funding per capita Once the global figures of PSM funding in the European Union have been analyzed, it is key to contextualize them in relation to a number of characteristics of the studied countries. It is essential to relativize the data in terms of the population of each country, as it seems logic to think that population size constitutes a factor somehow conditioning the funding of PSM. Thus, weighing the figures in relation to inhabitants can contribute to a better understanding of which countries make greater efforts regarding their public service media organizations. In this regard, as an average figure, public service media organizations in the European Union had 65,7 euros per inhabitant available in 2016, approximately 1 euro less (66,9) of the amount at their disposal RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73 – Pages 1054 to 1071 [Research Funded] | DOI:10.4185/RLCS-2018-1296en | ISSN 1138-5820 | Year 2018 http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1296/55en.html Página 1062 in 2010. This figure has remained quite stable during the past six years, fluctuating around 65-66 euros, as it is reflected in Table 3. That said, this average figure portrays an important dispersion of the budget per inhabitant that the different PSM organizations have at their disposal in each of the studied countries, thus reflecting the major differences in their revenues per capita. Table 3. PSM revenues per inhabitant Budget per Inhabitant (Euros) 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 %Δ16/10 %Δ13/10 %Δ16/13 Austria 116,3 118,4 119,2 119,3 115,7 114,0 111,5 -4,1 2,6 -6,5 Belgium 66,1 66,0 69,0 69,5 71,0 69,8 69,6 5,4 5,2 0,1 Bulgaria 8,9 8,7 8,9 8,5 8,6 8,7 8,5 -4,4 -4,4 0,0 Croatia 47,0 44,3 44,2 43,0 42,3 42,6 42,9 -8,7 -8,5 -0,2 Cyprus 54,9 43,8 43,7 35,6 37,0 36,4 39,1 -28,8 -35,2 9,9 Czech Republic 34,4 32,5 32,8 32,1 31,5 31,0 30,7 -10,8 -6,7 -4,4 Denmark 145,8 149,1 154,4 158,7 164,1 157,8 160,5 10,1 8,9 1,2 Estonia 21,3 21,3 21,5 23,1 22,3 25,6 30,6 43,8 8,4 32,6 Finland 78,5 80,5 84,4 86,4 87,2 86,3 86,2 9,9 10,1 -0,2 France 67,7 70,3 71,4 68,5 68,3 67,4 68,5 1,2 1,1 0,1 Germany 110,4 109,5 107,0 109,6 117,0 113,5 111,7 1,1 -0,8 1,9 Greece 34,7 29,6 n.d. n.d. 16,1 16,8 17,6 -49,2 n.d. n.d. Hungary 17,7 23,9 30,4 30,3 28,3 29,3 30,5 71,9 71,0 0,5 Ireland 89,8 84,9 81,6 79,4 79,1 79,9 79,2 -11,8 -11,6 -0,2 Italy 47,7 47,6 44,2 42,9 42,7 41,0 46,3 -2,8 -9,9 7,9 Latvia 10,2 10,4 11,0 11,9 13,4 13,4 13,5 31,5 15,8 13,5 Lithuania 5,5 6,2 6,9 7,0 7,6 8,6 11,4 106,9 27,8 61,9 Luxembourg n.d. n.d. 8,8 9,3 9,6 10,0 10,2 n.d. n.d. 9,6 Malta 19,8 21,8 24,2 22,9 24,2 28,4 26,9 36,0 15,4 17,8 Netherlands 51,7 51,4 51,7 49,7 50,8 50,2 52,3 1,2 -3,9 5,2 Poland 13,7 12,4 10,1 11,2 11,3 12,1 10,8 -21,2 -18,1 -3,8 Portugal 29,2 30,0 24,6 22,3 20,5 20,4 20,8 -28,8 -23,6 -6,7 Rumania 11,4 11,4 11,1 10,7 10,8 10,3 9,8 -13,4 -5,9 -8,0 Slovakia 18,9 21,2 18,0 18,6 19,2 20,8 21,3 12,8 -1,7 14,8 Slovenia 65,2 53,5 57,8 56,7 57,2 57,3 57,5 -11,9 -13,0 1,3 Spain 60,1 55,1 46,2 41,8 38,9 41,7 43,8 -27,1 -30,5 4,9 Sweden 77,7 82,0 87,9 87,0 85,9 85,5 88,1 13,3 11,8 1,3 United Kingdom 113,2 111,9 118,7 111,7 112,4 125,3 113,0 -0,2 -1,4 1,2 EU average 66,9 66,3 66,6 65,2 65,2 66,3 65,7 -1,8 -2,5 0,7 Source: Personal processing of data from EAO and Eurostat. RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73 – Pages 1054 to 1071 [Research Funded] | DOI:10.4185/RLCS-2018-1296en | ISSN 1138-5820 | Year 2018 http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1296/55en.html Página 1069 advertisement, which does not seem to experience an equivalent recovery in the following period of economic recovery, at least not in the same extent and proportion. Graph 5. Revenues of PSM in terms of GDP in PPP Source: personal processing of data from EAO and Eurostat. As the analysis developed in the previous sections showed that, as a general trend, the revenues of public service media organizations between 2013 and 2016 were aiming at a certain stability and even to a certain growth, it becomes clear that the drop on the revenues in terms of GDP in PPP can be explained by a most intense increase in this variable; that is to say, as the European economies have abandoned their stage of economic recession and have gathered certain growth, such growth was not proportionally transferred to the budgets of public service media organizations. Therefore, it could be stated that the financial crisis brought a major impact on the resources available for this public organizations through revenue cutbacks both in public funding and in other income sources, such as advertisement, which does not seem to experience an equivalent recovery in the following period of economic recovery, at least not in the same extent and proportion. RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73 – Pages 1054 to 1071 [Research Funded] | DOI:10.4185/RLCS-2018-1296en | ISSN 1138-5820 | Year 2018 http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1296/55en.html Página 1070 4. Conclusions The impact of the financial crisis, the changes affecting media production, distribution and consumption models and the constant increase on the questioning of their legitimacy have placed public service media at a crossroads that calls for the adaptation of the different funding models found in the European Union. Direct subsidy from general budgets has been widely questioned because of the room it leaves for political interference. This influence could be mitigated through the establishment of specific amounts for closed periods, a measure that would also bring more stability. Countries like Finland and Germany have already reacted to the crisis of the most widespread funding system in Europe, the licence fee, extending it to all citizens through a progressive tax, in the first case, and to all households, in the second. The proposal to include crowdfunding for the allocation of funds to public service media organizations also appeals to the reflection on the update of funding schemes that respect the principle of universality. The stagnation of public service media funding in the European Union during the analyzed period reveals the need for a reformulation of business models, valuing the need of such services with regard to criteria such as legitimacy, independence, quality, reputation and trust. Even if the evolution of the funding figures in the current decade, as it has been pointed out, show in the European Union average certain stability or stagnation, this must not hide the major differences in the allocation of resources and the consolidation of public service media between the strong model of the Northern countries and the weakness shown by Southern Europe in this analysis. Anyway, two different stages can be detected within the analyzed period between 2010 and 2016. The first triennial would correlate to a first stage of clear and major budget reductions in many countries, coinciding with the recession that was hitting Western economies during these years. A second triennial, between 2013 and 2016 depicts, in general, how the funding of European public service media organizations has improved, both in the European average figure and in most of the countries of the analyzed sample, even though this improvement is deemed moderate if compared to the major drops of the previous period in some countries. The analysis in reference to households and inhabitants of the countries of the study depict very similar conclusions. The regular concept of a two-speed Europe, that is to say, the gap between the strong Norther Europe and the weak Southern Europe, is clearly shown on the analysis of the disposition and stability of the revenues that fund public service media organizations. These same conclusions are reached when considering the size of the economies, even though in this case a certain stiffness is revealed when increasing the revenues of public service media organizations in the stage of economic upswings, contrasting with the little resistance to adjustments that affected such funding during the previous stage of economic recession. This evidences the need for a renewed funding model that addresses questions of predictability, independence, trust and legitimacy for the public service media system to be sustainable over the medium to longer term. * Funded research. The results of this work are attributable to the project “Indicadores de gobernanza, financiación, rendición de cuentas, innovación, calidad y servicio público de las RTV europeas aplicables a España en el contexto digital” (Reference CSO2015-66543-P) of the State programme Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica de Excelencia, statal subprogramme Generación de Conocimiento of the Ministry of Economy and Finance of RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73 – Pages 1054 to 1071 [Research Funded] | DOI:10.4185/RLCS-2018-1296en | ISSN 1138-5820 | Year 2018 http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1296/55en.html Página 1071 Spain, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) of the European Union. The author Marta Rodríguez-Castro has an FPU contract under Grant FPU16/05234. 5. References Y Achille (1994): Les Télévisions publiques en quête d’avenir. Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble. 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The regulation of public broadcasters’ new media services across Europe (Eds., K Donders y H Moe). Gothenburg: Nordicom. __________________________________________________________________ How to cite this article in bibliographies / References O Juanatey-Boga, V A Martínez-Fernández, M Rodríguez-Castro (2018): “The Two-Speed Europe reflected in Public Service Media Funding: a budget based analysis”. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 73, pp. 1054 to 1071. http://www.revistalatinacs.org/073paper/1296/55en.html DOI: 10.4185/RLCS-2018-1296en Article received on 23 December 2017. Accepted on 20 May. Published on 26 May 2018.