Why public service broadcasting (PSB) matters  We all know what
comes from rampant and unrestrained commercial activity: a
worship of Mammon to the exclusion of everything except the
feeding of company directors’ and financiers egos and greed. In
broadcasting, unrestrained commerce equals a low grade, populist
cultural diet heavily polluted with advertising. Many supporters
of PSB think that is a case of ’nuff said’.  Were it only that
easy.  The fact that commercial broadcasters left to their own
devices do tend to go for the lowest common cultural denominator
is not a knockdown justification for PSB but an expression of
opinion, a projection of taste. That is so even in the areas
where PSB would seem to be most obviously valuable such as the
provision of news and current affairs programming. Sadly, there
is no necessary reason why such programmes made by PSB providers
should be more or less biased than those provided by commercial
broadcasters. Indeed, it could be plausibly argued that
PSB political coverag