The trend of assessment indicators for public service media in Europe

Abstract

The creation of indicators to assess the provision of public audiovisual services is a strategy that has increased over the last years, both in Europe and other parts of the world, with the aim of reinforcing credibility and supporting the sustainability of their funding through the improvement of their governance, transparency, participation, innovation and accountability. The chapter, which starts from the evolution from public broadcasting to public media service, addresses the issue of public value tests and indicators as one of the current trends in the research and management agenda of these media of social communication. It is concluded that composed indicators, as quantitative and qualitative statistical tools, are demanded because of their utility for good practices in governance and new ways of accountability with the aim of reinforcing legitimacy and assessing both the effectiveness and efficiency of public service media, against the competition of many other media within the context of the new ecology of social communication.