Editing Public broadcasting (section)

==Economics==
Public broadcasters may receive their funding from an obligatory [[television licence]] fee, individual contributions, government funding or commercial sources. Public broadcasters do not rely on advertising to the same degree as commercial broadcasters, or at all; this allows public broadcasters to transmit programmes that are not commercially viable to the [[mass market]], such as [[Public affairs (broadcasting)|public affairs]] shows, [[radio documentary|radio]] and television documentaries, and [[educational programme]]s.

One of the principles of public broadcasting is to provide coverage of interests for which there are missing or small markets. Public broadcasting attempts to supply topics of social benefit that are otherwise not provided by commercial broadcasters. Typically, such underprovision is argued to exist when the benefits to viewers are relatively high in comparison to the benefits to advertisers from contacting viewers.<ref name=andcoate /> This frequently is the case in undeveloped countries that normally have low benefits to advertising.<ref name=andcoate>{{cite journal|author1=Simon P. Anderson|author2=Stephen Coate|title=Market Provision of Broadcasting: A Welfare Analysis|journal=[[The Review of Economic Studies]]|date=October 2005|volume=72|issue=4|pages=947–972 |doi=10.1111/0034-6527.00357 }}</ref>

An alternative funding model proposed by [[Michael Slaby]] is to give every citizen credits they can use to pay qualified media sources for civic information and reporting.<ref>{{cite book |title=For All the People |author=Michael Slaby |year=2021 |publisher=Disruption Books |isbn=978-1-63331-051-3 |page=145}}</ref>

In the early 2020's, many of the public [[International broadcasting|international broadcasters]] that court audiences abroad have seen their budgets shrink, with the exception of [[Deutsche Welle]], while [[state media]] outlets from [[Authoritarianism|authoritarian]] countries like [[Russia]], [[China]] and [[Iran]] have been increasing their budgets since the early 2000's.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Romy |first=Katy |date=2025-04-25 |title=International public media face uncertain future in democracies |url=https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/democracy/international-public-media-face-uncertain-future-in-democracies/89207323 |access-date=2025-05-29 |website=SWI swissinfo.ch |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=China and Russia are deploying powerful new weapons: ideas |url=https://www.economist.com/international/2025/05/15/china-and-russia-are-deploying-powerful-new-weapons-ideas |access-date=2025-05-29 |work=The Economist |issn=0013-0613}}</ref>