The term "public service media" is generally used to refer to a particular form of radio and television broadcasting that emerged in Western Europe in the 1920s, of which the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the best-known example and most common reference point. Public service broadcasting is still a mainstay in most of Western Europe, as well as in an array of countries as diverse as Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Japan. In various local adaptations, it is also an important model in the emerging media systems of Africa, Asia, and the former Soviet bloc. However, challenged by the pressures of diminishing public funds, the growth of commercial media, new technologies, and globalization, public service broadcasting no longer enjoys the dominant— even, in some countries, monopolistic—position that it once held. It is still nonetheless the most important existing mainstream alternative to commercial broadcasting...