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This article elucidates the role of issue news and personality news in Germany and the Netherlands. A party with a popular leader is assumed to benefit from increased media attention. A party may also benefit from issue news. News on an issue favours its ‘issue owner’ (e.g. the German Social Democrats in the case of news on social security). Good news on issue developments (e.g. rising employment) favours the parties who make up the Dutch coalition government, whereas bad news (e.g. rising unemployment) favours opposition parties. Content analysis of the 1994 and 1998 election campaigns in Germany and the Netherlands shows that issue news and personality portrayal vary heavily between countries and between subsequent elections within one country. A broad comparison of news patterns and election outcomes suggests that election outcomes do indeed correspond with the news. A closer examination of effects of news about issues and party leaders on party preference at the level of individual respondents confirms the results of the exploratory analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article demonstrates that the cost of public service broadcasting is dependent on the wealth and size of the country, and that, whatever its social and political environment public service broadcasting companies show identical characteristics. The supply of programmes is determined by such variables as the number of TV receivers, the number of channels and the existence of advertising as a source of finance. The introduction of advertising is shown to increase the length of programmes without providing new resources, with the consequence that the quality of programming decreases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confronted with the privatization of communications in particular and the deregulation of state-linked structures in general, many critical researchers have come to defend public service broadcasting (PSB), despite their previous criticism of both PSB and commercial broadcasting. This article examines the arguments in the debate over the future of PSB in Europe and argues that important developments in new media mean this debate is no longer simply two-sided. Taking account of these new media and drawing on the Belgian example, the author evaluates three possible scenarios for the future of PSB — immobility, free competition, or PSB organized as an audiovisual `holding' — and proposes an alternative Le Monde-like restructuring of PSB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]