Public Service Broadcasting

Challenging the opinion that public service broadcasting is a thing of the past, David Hendy explains its importance in the present – and in the future. Written by a leading expert in the field, this book explores the development of public service broadcasting, outlining the key debates and issues, while situating them within wider cultural contexts.

Hendy uses media history to consider the outlook for broadcasters such as the BBC, and other networks and stations around the world. He analyzes how these institutions shape society, culture, and politics, focusing on how key ethical and cultural values - such as enlightenment, impartiality, service, choice, and trust – have been constantly reinvented to ensure that broadcasting can carry on being a public 'good' as well as a commercial product.

Clear, concise, and contemporary, Public Service Broadcasting is invaluable reading for all students of media and broadcasting, and for anyone interested in a strand of media that has had - and continues to have - an enormous social and cultural impact, not only in Britain, but across the globe.


DAVID HENDY is Professor of Media and Communications at the University of Sussex . He is the author of Radio in the Global Age (2000), Life on Air: a History of Radio Four (2007), which won the Longmans-History Today Book of the Year, and Noise: a Human History of Sound and Listening (2013). He also broadcasts regularly, and has presented series about media and cultural history on both BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4.