There's always been a subtext to the concept of public service broadcasting, that its subject matter will, of necessity, have a limited audience. Therefore, the argument goes, it will become the Cinderella of broadcasting, with low production costs and values unless it is subsidised in some form; commercial pressure for mass audiences won't support quality public service. They'll also add that the greater choice offered by digital and the world-wide web will reduce their audience even further.
This is literally a form of agoraphobia. Instead of being afraid of the marketplace, why not seize the chance to fulfil the public service mission, even if imperfectly? Public subvention should be used for experimental and adventurous programming, not as a subsidy for sticking to the conventional and boring.
Persisting in a high-minded view of the form and content of public service broadcasting would confine it to a niche market. But its subject matter, things like the work of the Oireachtas or a new poem by Seamus Heaney, are not minority interests like polo or lacrosse; they are, or should be shown to be, vital to everybody's existence. The opening is there. Not only the technology, but the public who use it has changed.
When Irish television began nearly 40 years ago, its audience shared many values and tastes, or felt it had to. Norms about what was culturally and intellectually admirable were fairly clear, but only certain classes of persons were thought to be able to achieve this lofty state. Viewers should be offered what was good for them, and if they didn't like it they belonged to an underclass who should stick with the sports pages of the British tabloids and not worry about what happened to the country. Attempts to make difficult issues accessible were dismissed as "trivialising".
This was always something of a cop-out, and now with an audience that believes information is its due, it's more so than ever. People want accountability, they want to discuss freely the actions and lives of authority and power figures. New and wider audiences can be enticed to engage with important matters of the day. Yet they are offered mostly programmes in the same old formats, a formalised mazurka of interviewers and the same spokespersons and commentators performing their ritual round of musical chairs.
The irony is that new ways of dressing up serious subjects are categorised as "dumbing down", the old charge of "trivialising". This is to miss the boat and renege on an important objective of public service broadcasting, "to stimulate latent interest".
The tone and style of public discourse have changed. People like their information laced with gossip and entertainment. Martin Drudge's notorious web site, featuring the "blue dress", which mainstream journalism shied away from, eventually led to us finding out about Clinton's feet of clay.
Informing the voters now, not waiting for history, is crucial, and a very serious duty of public service broadcast providers. Political cabaret worked in Berlin between the wars and it's back in fashion. The two Johns in Rory Bremner's programme target double-speak in politics. Here at home, Nighthawks was often successful in the same area. Bull Island is capable of similar development. Dermot Morgan certainly realised the potential of combining political comment and satire.
Politicians who boast of their thick skins often complain that their proceedings are not covered, adducing this as one reason why the punters are losing interest. They complain equally if they're lampooned or satirised. Going along with the rules of coverage of broadcast politics produces dull programmes which realistically have to be scheduled away from prime viewing times. If someone invited our Perrier award winners to try their hands at a mix of satire and current affairs, we'd have more viewers and more voters.
Not only is public service broadcasting losing out in form, but it is seriously lacking in initiatives to fulfil some parts of its remit. Coverage of the administration of justice for instance. The heavy hand of the legal establishment, even more than its political counterpart, has kept broadcasters at bay to the discredit of both. But not entirely.
The refusal of the tribunals to admit cameras or microphones has produced Vincent Browne's excellent reconstructions on radio. The irony is that they are probably much more effective in stimulating public awareness of the issues than any lamely edited "official" coverage.
Similarly, Newsnight produced a very telling reconstruction of highlights of the Hamilton/Al Fayed libel case. Thus are establishments hoist on the petards of their own bans, claimed to be to protect democracy, but which, in practice, undermine their own credibility. Any institution today which isn't cheerfully open to analysis and even satire will be marginalised and disrespected.
Radio has done much more to push the boundaries. Today FM's Last Word with Eamon Dunphy has found an attractive in-your-face format.
Interactive, phone-in programmes, Marian Finucane, Joe Duffy and Gerry Ryan, sometimes over-indulge whingers, and in problem areas often raise expectations that they don't satisfy. But by involving real, sometimes inarticulate people, they contribute hugely to participative democracy, which television does very little of. With more and more people having access to email, the opportunities are immense. If the spirit of risk is there, everyone can have a say. That's the real service to a real public.
There's room on television for a nightly sweep-up programme hosted by Vincent Browne and Eamon Dunphy which, for example, would carry a satirical cameo of a TD and a critique by Roddy Doyle of the Venus de Milo. The tone would be in keeping with the sardonic, no bullshit zeitgeist, its producers definitely not motivated by a desire, as your correspondent Brian Smyth put it, "to play a powerful role in the lives of this country's people", which smacks of the old patronising guru mentality.
To quote that old trooper, himself a great peddler of sharp comment and sender up of self-importance, Clive James: "It is axiomatic that there is never a significant alteration in what happens on screen without a proportionately large alteration of personnel behind it". But look at how long it has taken Browne and Dunphy to get their hands on any lever of broadcast communications, and don't hold your breath.
John O'Donoghue is a writer, broad- caster and media consultant