Marius Dragomir

Independent journalism faces converging pressures from media capture, volatile donor priorities, and platform-driven markets accelerated by generative AI. This article presents 5 years (2020–2025) of first-hand evidence from a donor-funded program to support journalism in Hungary that combined core funding, mentoring, and organizational development for independent local outlets. A longitudinal mixed-methods design disaggregates sustainability into money (revenue diversity, cash flow), management (absorptive capacity, governance, leadership), and market position (audience growth, brand trust, sales capability). Findings show that philanthropic funding is only conditionally conducive to sustainability under capture. Grants enabled survival, professionalization, and audience gains, but rarely produced durable revenue diversity in markets distorted by politicized state advertising, advertiser risk-aversion, and low willingness to pay for news. The program’s clearest contributions were transitional: financing operational and managerial upgrades, supporting product and audience experiments, and providing temporary insulation from hostile conditions. These gains materialized primarily where absorptive capacity and leadership were already strong. Donor-backed networking delivered only partial results, and abrupt donor exit exposed the fragility of post-grant trajectories. The overarching lesson is that donor intervention must be understood as a long-term investment in a difficult-to-visualize public good, namely democratic resistance and opposition, that yields indirect civic returns and, over time, creates the preconditions for tangible market and policy change. Anything less will fail to achieve meaningful or lasting impact.

Governance Models in Public Service Media presents the solutions for European Public Service Media to face its new governance models in a new media landscape

Regional broadcast media comprises a substantial sector across Europe, encompassing thousands of players and drawing on considerable public funds. Yet, as the media landscape becomes an increasingly crowded field and the competitive heat from tech giants ratchets up, the need for media companies to sharpen their edge will only intensify. Gaining that competitive vantage requires embracing innovative practices and business models—especially as the relentless wave of innovation, often bankrolled by large tech corporations, continues to wash over the industry. Drawing on insights from interviews with representatives of member organizations under CIRCOM-Regional, Europe's largest association of regional broadcasters, this article sheds light on how regional public service media grapple with innovation. Despite widespread awareness of its significance, the findings suggest that many regional broadcasters lag behind in fully embracing the concept. Only a rare few boast dedicated teams or resources for innovation. In most cases, progress is driven through technological enhancements and organizational openness, while strategic policies and long-term investment plans often fall by the wayside.

El auge de la desinformación, el populismo y la creciente polarización política están alterando la esfera pública tradicional (Habermas, 1989) y mermando la calidad de la democracia en la era digital, provocando una transformación y cambio disruptivo en las relaciones entre la ciudadanía y la política (Hans-Jorg, 2023). La reelección de Donald Trump supuso la culminación de una línea iniciada desde hacía más de una década por el precursor y líder de la denominada alt-right (derecha alternativa), Richard B. Spencer y su sumisión en una oleada reaccionaria global, que se internalizó gracias a la voluntad de una serie de actores fundamentales, como Steve Bannon, uno de los intelectuales del movimiento y asesor del presidente americano (Wendling, 2023), cuya organización encontró en la desinformación y la propagación de teorías de la conspiración una vía de difusión de sus ideas. Lo mismo ocurre con las sucesivas campañas organizadas de difusión de fake-news difundidas desde el Kremlin, especialmente en períodos electorales, con la intención de desestabilizar gobiernos democráticos.

Despite enjoying a series of advantages and privileges, including access to public funding and technical infrastructure, as well as a special regulatory framework allowing them to reach almost the entire population, public service media (PSM) have historically faced a number of challenges. These include opposition from privately held media and various political parties, mounting criticism from audiences, and incessant pressures from state authorities. Some have been more successful than others in defending themselves against these attacks. Some PSM institutions have gained a high level of trust as a result of their ability to maintain a balanced approach to political coverage. Some are recognised for the quality of their news content. However, some other organisations have lost credibility and audience share as a result of various pressures. The platformisation trend has had a particularly disruptive impact on public service media (PSM) organisations. The challenge of adapting to the new digital landscape has been significant, requiring careful navigation to maintain the core values that guide their operations, as defined by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU): universality, independence, excellence, diversity, accountability and innovation. This article employs a recently developed framework for examining PSM and draws upon field research to analyse the transformation of PSM in response to platformisation-related pressures in four European countries: Austria, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Conceived as institutions funded by the public purse and intended to exist devoid of political influence, the mandate of public service media (PSM) entities is to disseminate reliable news content and high-quality audiovisual productions to all demographic segments, inclusive of marginalized communities and audiences that are typically under-served. Over the previous ten years, the rise in prominence of global platforms in national media systems has precipitated many changes in the media sector, including unique challenges for PSM institutions guided by specific public service values. Using a holistic conceptual framework for assessing the implementation of these values, this article analyzes the impact of platformization on Europe’s PSM and discusses how the Union’s policy approaches affect related challenges to PSM. The analysis indicates that while the European Union (EU) has accorded a high priority to PSM within its media policy framework, the role that Brussels plays in protecting the independence and efficacy of PSM has been circumscribed, given that the onus of regulating PSM entities rests with national governments. This has engendered contrasting experiences wherein certain PSM outlets enjoy political independence and command significant public trust while others function as state-controlled propaganda vehicles, advancing the objectives and interests of governing bodies. The EU has addressed global platform power in recent attempts to safeguard its digital future, including the Digital Services Act (DSA), Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA). However, these acts do not adequately address PSM’s two central and often interconnected problems: funding challenges and political pressures.