‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul?’ Finding the public and monetary value in public-public partnerships for PSM. Paper presented at RIPE@2012 Conference.

While partnerships with other public institutions (educational field, cultural sector, libraries, archiving institutions) have been part of public broadcasters' day-to-day practice for some time, they are being increasingly enforced through management contracts and, moreover, branded as a more efficient and effective organizational mode to deliver public value to citizens. The question then rises whether partnerships are indeed adding public value in comparison to services provided by public broadcasters on an exclusive basis. This paper addresses this question, analyzing both the public and monetary value in public-private partnerships. Secondly, assessing monetary and public value of these partnerships also raises the question on how to evaluate this. While broadcasters as the BBC have made efforts to estimate the cost and benefits of commercial ventures, for partnerships with public players, this becomes a tricky question and, as is the case with defining public remit, ultimately a normative one. In academic research, analysis of public-public partnerships in public service broadcasting still remains relatively uncharted territory. This paper aims to demystify some of the claims associated with partnerships in rhetoric and policy strategy by analyzing the initiatives and practice, as well as the policy rhetoric of which the partnerships stem from. A focus on the public-public character of partnerships is important because they differentiate from other partnerships in a number of ways.

The paper consists of four parts. Firstly, setting out from public service broadcasting and public organization literature, it identifies the objectives of public-public partnerships and ways to analyze their performance. Secondly, the objectives of politicians in enforcing a 'partnership' agenda upon public broadcasters are listed, critically evaluating the balance between public and efficiency motives in this regard. Findings are based on an analysis of management contracts between public broadcasters and governments, media laws, speeches, strategic documents, etc. Thirdly, the actual outcome of a selection of partnerships is studied, drawing from desk research and an extensive set of expert interviews with public broadcasting representatives (engaged in production or management) and partners of public broadcasters. Interviews were conducted between 2009 and 2011. Over 70 experts were interviewed. Focus of the empirical analysis is on the partnership agenda between public broadcasters and cultural organizations in the United Kingdom, Flanders and the Netherlands. The first selected country has an extensive and explicit commitments towards partnerships; the latter two have intensified the intent to establish a partnership agenda, being inspired by the UK experience in doing so.

Findings of this paper demonstrate that the additional value of partnerships is ultimately a question of context. The amount to which partnerships can be considered succesful is highly related to the relationships and interaction public broadcasters have with their partners (in terms of dialogue, etc.) and the intensity of the partnership commitments in which they are involded. In terms of efficiency, broadcasters themselves argue that these public-public partnerships, contrary to joint ventures within for example BBC Worldwide, often increase the costs of ventures rather than reducing it. In smaller broadcasting constellations, overarching strategies often lack coherence, and fragmented subsidies are more aimed at reducing the financial risks and diminishing criticism by tying the fates of the stakeholders together. Additionally, for smaller broadcasters the financial contribution of external partners still seems to prevail over the public benefits the partnership might generate. This might risk having public spendings shifting from one department towards the other, eventually ending up 'robbing Peter' to 'pay Paul'. The paper concludes that public-public partnerships and a partnership agenda are desirable in establishing a digital commons of public institutions collaborating and interacting, however only when commitments are straightforward, clear, and when partnership strategies are pragmatic and in line with the sustainability of the PSB remit and organisation. Any partnership agenda solely propagated for the sake of having a partnership agenda, might risk the whole partnership idea ending up as an empty box.