Public Affairs Television Programming

Public affairs programming on television consists of noncommercial televised content (e.g., broadcast news and information) that seeks to further the common good. In capitalist societies (e.g., the United States), there has always been some tension between noncommercial public affairs broadcasting and the commercial media industry. The main issue is the question of how noncommercial nonprofit broadcasting or content, which conflicts with the primary parameters of media as a profit-oriented industry, can survive in the media marketplace.

About 350 public broadcasting television stations are members of the PBS in the United States, and it is possible to talk about a number of small local stations that produce nonprofit content, while the number of similar nationally developed organizations is quite low. Still, some of these local organizations have ...