Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article about european public broadcasters is an example to analysis the development in Latin American public broadcasters and this text establishes transparency recommendations to establish them when creating public media.

The text presented has an important research aspect for the development and maintenance of public media in front of the citizens, due to its responsibility to constantly report the general strategy of its activity and decision-making, as well as the participation of citizens. The existing comparison between the different European public channels marks a paradigm of how they have been working on the issue of citizen transparency and its relationship with editorial content, as well as social control and accountability, which is why these models serve so that the different countries of the world establish parameters of how a public medium should behave institutionally.

Regarding the contribution to the study area, of the public media and its development and maintenance, it is important to note that this is a contribution not only for scholars of public opinion but also for the administrators and managers of public media, due to it helps to find gaps and enhance untapped strategies.

The work methodology highlights not only the comparison of the websites, in a formal way, but with the interviews, a relationship is established of what is expressed and what is actually practiced, from the managers and administrators, in order to see if the statement is completely practiced or if it only stays in the speech.

English is not my mother tongue, but the text is well structured and maintains a very fluid expository rhythm.

The text is coherent in every way, since the hypotheses raised are answered in the conclusions and the analysis shows how each media chain has its strategies, favors actions to the detriment of others, but works on the credibility of its information.

A good job that helps to position the importance of public media in democratic and deliberative societies.

Author Response

The authors are grateful for the reviewer's comments and for pointing out the positive aspects of the text. We write the reviews made to improve the article.

General answer

The authors agree with the reviewers' comments. All revisions have been considered.

-The selection of experts has been justified considering their training, their geographical diversity and their professional / academic nature. The relationship with transparency policies and governance management in corporations has also been justified.

-A page is added on the financing models of corporations. We think that it is good to discuss the academic literature with the idea that the financing models of European public televisions are diverse and have been influenced in the last decade by three fundamental aspects: a) the economic crisis that began in 2008; b) the loss of legitimacy of public services; c) the process of technological convergence.

- We include references to research on content analysis (Krippendorff, 2004. Silverman, 2016)

- We explain the selection criteria of the sample date, by availability and organization criteria.

- 19 new references are added in the transparency of public television.

 -References to previous research are included in the conclusions (Palau-Sampio, 2017; Costa-Sánchez and Túñez-López, 2017; Herzog et al., 2018; Campos-Freire, Vaz-Álvarez and Ufarte Ruiz, 2021; Blasco-Blasco , Rodríguez-Castro, Túñez-López, 2020) and their discussion.

• In addition, we have corrected other small bugs.

Corrections

Methodology 

In this regard, all 24 respondents were selected taking into account their education (all of them hold a PhD in the field of Social Sciences) and on the basis of geographical diversity (we had participants holding teaching positions in Latin America, Europe and the USA). Most of the scholars selected for the nominal group are researchers in the field of journalism, audio-visual communication, political science, and sociology, although, to a lower extent, they also include professionals from public televisions and managers of news companies working in a variety of departments. Their connection with transparency policies and governance management is underpinned by two aspects: first, most of them have contributed to the project “New values, governance, funding and public audiovisual services for the Internet society: European and Spanish contrasts” (2019-2021) financed by the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Universities, as well as to the project “Indicators of governance, funding, accountability, innovation, quality and public service in European broadcasters applicable to Spain in the digital context” (20162018), financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Secondly, they have contributed to research into regulatory policies and strategies involving the UE, the States and the corporations themselves on transparency issues. A balanced participation between men and women was achieved and the anonymity of their responses was ensured.

 In the analysis conducted by the authors at the beginning of the 21st century, only 18 western democracies were analysed (nine countries from Northern and Central Europe, five countries from Southern Europe and four from the Atlantic) with two preconditions: a) the existence of competitive political systems with free elections, and b) the existence of public and private media within a consolidated system with clear rules. On this basis, the present article takes into account this analysis to select several public corporations from each model while excluding other States such as for instance those from Central or Eastern Europe.

Funding and management models of the countries analysed 

The funding models of the European public broadcasters are diverse and have been influenced in the latest decade by three fundamental aspects that have indirectly had an impact on an increased demand for transparency: a) the economic crisis that started in 2008; b) the loss of legitimacy of public services; c) the process of technological convergence. These models, by virtue of their income, rely on four mayor sources (Lowe & Berg, 2013): license fee (the most widely used), advertisement, subscription and subsidy, as well as others such as the marketing of broadcasting rights (Juanatey-Boga, Martínez & Castro, 2018). On this basis, the European Broadcasting Union laid down four essential principles for the funding system of the European public broadcasting service: stability, Independence, accountability and transparency (EBU, 2017). In the last decade and on the basis of global figures provided by the European Audiovisual Observatory, a number of differences can be identified in the funding of broadcasters which need to be approached on the basis of the different models (Juanatey-Boga, Martínez & Castro, 2018): firstly, the countries in the south of Europe have not seen their funding increased whether it is because of deep cuts (Portugal and Spain) or the freezing of the license fee  (France and Italy); secondly, the countries under the corporatist model have seen a moderate increase (Germany), a remarkable increase (Belgium) or a huge increase (Sweden) in funding; finally, public broadcasters from the Atlantic model have had different outcomes, with increases in the case of the British public broadcaster and a cut in the case of Ireland. On the whole, the German and British broadcasters (ZDF and BBC respectively) stand out as far as income is concerned, whereas the funding of Spanish RTVE is scarce relative to the size of the country (Corbella, 2020).

Another fundamental aspect that has historically influenced the funding of European public broadcasters has been the role of the State (not only as an auditor but also as the proprietor) and its influence on the media system. In this regard, each of the models described has common as well as divergent characteristics. For instance, in the Polarised Plural Model of Southern Europe, in both Spain and Portugal, the public broadcaster was not conceptualized as a public service (Bustamante, 1989). In Portugal, the management of the broadcaster was not subject to control (Traquina, 1995) and in Spain it has gradually evolved from a mixed commercial stateowned system (with advertising and subsidy) to the current one where advertising has been abolished as a consequence of the demand by the European Commission (which has also affected France) on the rates of business volume of the telecommunications operators (Jivkova Semova, 2011). In the case of Italy, unlike the rest of the neighbouring countries, it was conceptualised as a public service although in 1976 the Italian Constitutional Court “declared void the monopoly of the RAI and from that year until 1990, Italy had no law governing the public broadcaster” (Hallin & Mancini, 2008, p. 115) which also had an impact on its financing. As to the economic management of the liberal model, the news companies are more subject to commercial interests, a good example of this is the BBC or the RTÉ, where political independence comes with certain economic independence. Finally, the corporations in the democratic corporatist model show notable differences on their method of financing, partly due to the internal plurality of State and the participation of sub-state agencies in governance.

Conclusions

The information obtained in this study confirms previous research into institutional and economic transparency as well as into the transparency in the production of contents by European public broadcasters (Palau-Sampio, 2017; Costa-Sánchez & Túñez-López, 2017; Herzog et al., 2018), which differs from results in other latitudes (López-López, López-Golán & UlloaErazo, 2019) and which shows the specificities of the European media system (Campos-Freire, Vaz-Álvarez & Ufarte Ruiz, 2021). Similarly, this study shows the need to move forward towards more integrated and complex assessments with composite indicators so that other aspects such as social value or the efficacy in the management of the corporations can be measured (BlascoBlasco, Rodríguez-Castro, Túñez-López, 2020).

Dates 

The study on accountability processes was conducted between 20 March and 21 April 2021, on the basis of work organisation criteria and the availability of researchers.

New references

In this regard, transparency has become a central factor in the political and social life, generating a “culture of transparency” (Owetschkin, Sittmann & Berger, 2021) on which new ethical criteria derived from artificial intelligence are impacting (Barceló-Ugarte, Pérez-Tornero & Vila-Fumàs, 2021)

Blasco-Blasco, O., Rodríguez-Castro, M., & Túñez-López, M. (2020). Indicadores compuestos como metodología innovadora en Comunicación. Aplicación para la evaluación de los medios públicos europeos. Profesional de la Información, 29(4).

Juanatey-Boga, Ó., Martínez, V. A., & Castro, M. R. (2018). La Europa de dos velocidades reflejada en la financiación del servicio audiovisual público: un análisis basado en los presupuestos. Revista latina de comunicación social, (73), 1054-1071. 

Lowe, G. F., & Berg, C. E. (2013). The funding of public service media: A matter of value and values. International Journal on Media Management, 15(2), 77-97. 

EBU (2017): Public Funding Principles for Public Service Media. Grand-Saconnex: EBU 

Bustamante, E. (1989). TV and public service in Spain: a difficult encounter. Media, Culture & Society, 11(1), 67-87.

Traquina, N. (1995). Portuguese television: The politics of savage deregulation. Media, Culture & Society, 17(2), 223-238.

Jivkova Semova, D. (2011). RTVE sin publicidad: un modelo de financiación en estado de emergencia. Vivat Academia, (116), 75-91. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.15178/va.2011.116.75-91

Corbella, J. M. (2020). El futuro es complicado para la televisión pública, pero diferente en cada país. 

Palau-Sampio, D. (2017). Dealing with viewers’ complaints: Role, visibility and transparency of

PSB Ombudsmen in ten European countries. Observatorio (OBS*), 11(4). Costa-Sánchez, C., & Túñez-López, M. (2017). Análisis de la información corporativa en línea de las televisiones publicas europeas: transparencia, finanzas, RS, ética y relaciones con la audiencia. Comunicación y Medios, (36), 125-139.

Herzog, C., Novy, L., Hilker, H., & Torun, O. (2018). Transparency and funding of public service media in Germany, the Western world and beyond. In Transparency and Funding of Public Service Media–Die deutsche Debatte im internationalen Kontext (pp. 3-17). Springer VS, Wiesbaden.

Campos-Freire, F., Vaz-Álvarez, M., & Ufarte Ruiz, M. J. (2021). The Governance of Public Service

Media for the Internet Society. The Values of Public Service Media in the Internet Society, 129154.

López-López, P. C., López-Golán, M., & Ulloa-Erazo, N. G. (2019). Transparency in Public Service Television Broadcasters. In Communication: Innovation & Quality (pp. 37-55). Springer, Cham.

Krippendorff, Klaus (2004). Análisis de contenido. Sabio. ASIN: B01B8SR47Y

Silverman, David (2016). Investigación cualitativa. Londres: SAGE. ISBN: 1473916569

Owetschkin, D., Sittmann, J., & Berger, S. (2021). Cultures of transparency in a changing world: An introduction. In Cultures of Transparency (pp. 1-14). Routledge.

Barceló-Ugarte, T., Pérez-Tornero, J. M., & Vila-Fumàs, P. (2021). Ethical Challenges in Incorporating Artificial Intelligence into Newsrooms. News Media Innovation Reconsidered, 138.

Chaparro-Domínguez, M. Á., Pérez-Pereiro, M., & Rodríguez-Martínez, R. (2021). Media accountability in the age of social media: Participatory transparency of the audience in Spain. Global Media and Communication, 1742766521990417.

Reviewer 2 Report

1. the article is good, while it needs small corrections and answers to a few questions:
A. What were the rules of selecting experts for the qualitative study?
B. Lines 118-119 - The authors write:  "there are four major models for the management of public broadcasters (Hallin & Mancini, 2008)". However, from Table 2 (line 180) we can see that only the first three models were analyzed. Why was the fourth model omitted and why was there no Central and East Europe country among the countries studied?
C. It would also be useful to briefly characterize the models of financing public media in the analyzed countries and to collectively compare them in order to see similarities and differences.

Author Response

The authors welcome the reviewer's comments. In the first comment, the reviewer is right. The authors Hallin and Mancini describe in their work "Comparative media systems" three models, not four: Polarized Plurarist Model, North Atlantic Model, Democratic Corporatist Model. We have corrected that error. On the non-selection of Eastern European countries, the Hallin and Mancini model is studied on these countries: France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Canada and Ireland. Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Belgium and Sweden have been selected for population characteristics and importance of television. This selection criterion is better justified at work. To answer the third comment, a paragraph is added on financing models. We think that it is good to discuss the academic literature with the idea that the financing models of European public televisions are diverse, and have been influenced in the last decade by three fundamental aspects: a) the economic crisis that began in 2008; b) the loss of legitimacy of public services; c) the process of technological convergence.

General answer

The authors agree with the reviewers' comments. All revisions have been considered.

-The selection of experts has been justified considering their training, their geographical diversity and their professional / academic nature. The relationship with transparency policies and governance management in corporations has also been justified.

-A page is added on the financing models of corporations. We think that it is good to discuss the academic literature with the idea that the financing models of European public televisions are diverse and have been influenced in the last decade by three fundamental aspects: a) the economic crisis that began in 2008; b) the loss of legitimacy of public services; c) the process of technological convergence.

• We include references to research on content analysis (Krippendorff, 2004. Silverman, 2016)
• We explain the selection criteria of the sample date, by availability and organization criteria.
• 19 new references are added in the transparency of public television.

 -References to previous research are included in the conclusions (Palau-Sampio, 2017; CostaSánchez and Túñez-López, 2017; Herzog et al., 2018; Campos-Freire, Vaz-Álvarez and Ufarte Ruiz, 2021; Blasco-Blasco , Rodríguez-Castro, Túñez-López, 2020) and their discussion.

• In addition, we have corrected other small bugs.

Corrections

Methodology 

In this regard, all 24 respondents were selected taking into account their education (all of them hold a PhD in the field of Social Sciences) and on the basis of geographical diversity (we had participants holding teaching positions in Latin America, Europe and the USA). Most of the scholars selected for the nominal group are researchers in the field of journalism, audio-visual communication, political science, and sociology, although, to a lower extent, they also include professionals from public televisions and managers of news companies working in a variety of departments. Their connection with transparency policies and governance management is underpinned by two aspects: first, most of them have contributed to the project “New values, governance, funding and public audiovisual services for the Internet society: European and Spanish contrasts” (2019-2021) financed by the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Universities, as well as to the project “Indicators of governance, funding, accountability, innovation, quality and public service in European broadcasters applicable to Spain in the digital context” (20162018), financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Secondly, they have contributed to research into regulatory policies and strategies involving the UE, the States and the corporations themselves on transparency issues. A balanced participation between men and women was achieved and the anonymity of their responses was ensured.

 In the analysis conducted by the authors at the beginning of the 21st century, only 18 western democracies were analysed (nine countries from Northern and Central Europe, five countries from Southern Europe and four from the Atlantic) with two preconditions: a) the existence of competitive political systems with free elections, and b) the existence of public and private media within a consolidated system with clear rules. On this basis, the present article takes into account this analysis to select several public corporations from each model while excluding other States such as for instance those from Central or Eastern Europe.

Funding and management models of the countries analysed 

The funding models of the European public broadcasters are diverse and have been influenced in the latest decade by three fundamental aspects that have indirectly had an impact on an increased demand for transparency: a) the economic crisis that started in 2008; b) the loss of legitimacy of public services; c) the process of technological convergence. These models, by virtue of their income, rely on four mayor sources (Lowe & Berg, 2013): license fee (the most widely used), advertisement, subscription and subsidy, as well as others such as the marketing of broadcasting rights (Juanatey-Boga, Martínez & Castro, 2018). On this basis, the European Broadcasting Union laid down four essential principles for the funding system of the European public broadcasting service: stability, Independence, accountability and transparency (EBU, 2017). In the last decade and on the basis of global figures provided by the European Audiovisual Observatory, a number of differences can be identified in the funding of broadcasters which need to be approached on the basis of the different models (Juanatey-Boga, Martínez & Castro, 2018): firstly, the countries in the south of Europe have not seen their funding increased whether it is because of deep cuts (Portugal and Spain) or the freezing of the license fee  (France and Italy); secondly, the countries under the corporatist model have seen a moderate increase (Germany), a remarkable increase (Belgium) or a huge increase (Sweden) in funding; finally, public broadcasters from the Atlantic model have had different outcomes, with increases in the case of the British public broadcaster and a cut in the case of Ireland. On the whole, the German and British broadcasters (ZDF and BBC respectively) stand out as far as income is concerned, whereas the funding of Spanish RTVE is scarce relative to the size of the country (Corbella, 2020).

Another fundamental aspect that has historically influenced the funding of European public broadcasters has been the role of the State (not only as an auditor but also as the proprietor) and its influence on the media system. In this regard, each of the models described has common as well as divergent characteristics. For instance, in the Polarised Plural Model of Southern Europe, in both Spain and Portugal, the public broadcaster was not conceptualized as a public service (Bustamante, 1989). In Portugal, the management of the broadcaster was not subject to control (Traquina, 1995) and in Spain it has gradually evolved from a mixed commercial stateowned system (with advertising and subsidy) to the current one where advertising has been abolished as a consequence of the demand by the European Commission (which has also affected France) on the rates of business volume of the telecommunications operators (Jivkova Semova, 2011). In the case of Italy, unlike the rest of the neighbouring countries, it was conceptualised as a public service although in 1976 the Italian Constitutional Court “declared void the monopoly of the RAI and from that year until 1990, Italy had no law governing the public broadcaster” (Hallin & Mancini, 2008, p. 115) which also had an impact on its financing. As to the economic management of the liberal model, the news companies are more subject to commercial interests, a good example of this is the BBC or the RTÉ, where political independence comes with certain economic independence. Finally, the corporations in the democratic corporatist model show notable differences on their method of financing, partly due to the internal plurality of State and the participation of sub-state agencies in governance.

Conclusions

The information obtained in this study confirms previous research into institutional and economic transparency as well as into the transparency in the production of contents by European public broadcasters (Palau-Sampio, 2017; Costa-Sánchez & Túñez-López, 2017; Herzog et al., 2018), which differs from results in other latitudes (López-López, López-Golán & UlloaErazo, 2019) and which shows the specificities of the European media system (Campos-Freire, Vaz-Álvarez & Ufarte Ruiz, 2021). Similarly, this study shows the need to move forward towards more integrated and complex assessments with composite indicators so that other aspects such as social value or the efficacy in the management of the corporations can be measured (BlascoBlasco, Rodríguez-Castro, Túñez-López, 2020).

Dates 

The study on accountability processes was conducted between 20 March and 21 April 2021, on the basis of work organisation criteria and the availability of researchers.

New references

In this regard, transparency has become a central factor in the political and social life, generating a “culture of transparency” (Owetschkin, Sittmann & Berger, 2021) on which new ethical criteria derived from artificial intelligence are impacting (Barceló-Ugarte, Pérez-Tornero & Vila-Fumàs, 2021)

Blasco-Blasco, O., Rodríguez-Castro, M., & Túñez-López, M. (2020). Indicadores compuestos como metodología innovadora en Comunicación. Aplicación para la evaluación de los medios públicos europeos. Profesional de la Información, 29(4).

Juanatey-Boga, Ó., Martínez, V. A., & Castro, M. R. (2018). La Europa de dos velocidades reflejada en la financiación del servicio audiovisual público: un análisis basado en los presupuestos. Revista latina de comunicación social, (73), 1054-1071. 

Lowe, G. F., & Berg, C. E. (2013). The funding of public service media: A matter of value and values. International Journal on Media Management, 15(2), 77-97. 

EBU (2017): Public Funding Principles for Public Service Media. Grand-Saconnex: EBU 

Bustamante, E. (1989). TV and public service in Spain: a difficult encounter. Media, Culture & Society, 11(1), 67-87.

Traquina, N. (1995). Portuguese television: The politics of savage deregulation. Media, Culture & Society, 17(2), 223-238.

Jivkova Semova, D. (2011). RTVE sin publicidad: un modelo de financiación en estado de emergencia. Vivat Academia, (116), 75-91. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.15178/va.2011.116.75-91

Corbella, J. M. (2020). El futuro es complicado para la televisión pública, pero diferente en cada país. 

Palau-Sampio, D. (2017). Dealing with viewers’ complaints: Role, visibility and transparency of

PSB Ombudsmen in ten European countries. Observatorio (OBS*), 11(4). Costa-Sánchez, C., & Túñez-López, M. (2017). Análisis de la información corporativa en línea de las televisiones publicas europeas: transparencia, finanzas, RS, ética y relaciones con la audiencia. Comunicación y Medios, (36), 125-139.

Herzog, C., Novy, L., Hilker, H., & Torun, O. (2018). Transparency and funding of public service media in Germany, the Western world and beyond. In Transparency and Funding of Public Service Media–Die deutsche Debatte im internationalen Kontext (pp. 3-17). Springer VS, Wiesbaden.

Campos-Freire, F., Vaz-Álvarez, M., & Ufarte Ruiz, M. J. (2021). The Governance of Public Service

Media for the Internet Society. The Values of Public Service Media in the Internet Society, 129154.

López-López, P. C., López-Golán, M., & Ulloa-Erazo, N. G. (2019). Transparency in Public Service Television Broadcasters. In Communication: Innovation & Quality (pp. 37-55). Springer, Cham.

Krippendorff, Klaus (2004). Análisis de contenido. Sabio. ASIN: B01B8SR47Y

Silverman, David (2016). Investigación cualitativa. Londres: SAGE. ISBN: 1473916569

Owetschkin, D., Sittmann, J., & Berger, S. (2021). Cultures of transparency in a changing world: An introduction. In Cultures of Transparency (pp. 1-14). Routledge.

Barceló-Ugarte, T., Pérez-Tornero, J. M., & Vila-Fumàs, P. (2021). Ethical Challenges in Incorporating Artificial Intelligence into Newsrooms. News Media Innovation Reconsidered, 138.

Chaparro-Domínguez, M. Á., Pérez-Pereiro, M., & Rodríguez-Martínez, R. (2021). Media accountability in the age of social media: Participatory transparency of the audience in Spain. Global Media and Communication, 1742766521990417.

Reviewer 3 Report

-The issue  of transparency policy in the field of European public channels is an object of study of interest.

-The title provided is appropriate and includes the main brands of the investigation.

-The summary shows a correct structure: Approach to the topic, main objective, description of the methodology and progress of results.

-The authors provide a very complete study, with adequate and up-to-date theoretical references.

-The methodology is ambitious but it is rigorously treated.

-The content analysis applied to the strategies to increase the transparency of public televisions provides very relevant data. This approach helps to compare how different televisions work in Europe.

-References to research on content analysis are missing (Krippendorff, 2004, Silverman, 20016)

-I think the authors could have benefited more from the opinions of academic experts. The criteria for selecting the experts is appropriate if they should provide more information on each of them (origin, university or professional field, relationship with the issue of transparency)

-The sample is adequate although the criteria for defining the date (March 20-April 20) are not explained.

-The criteria for selecting television stations are well explained and consistent.

-The results appear well organized and the tables are used correctly. The tables provide a lot of data. The authors carry out a correct exploitation of the data.

-The conclusions are well structured and answer all four. Research questions.

-It is recommended to include some references to previous research in the conclusions.

-Regarding bibliographic references, it is recommended to add more recent studies on transparency in the field of public television and on transparency in the public institutional sphere. Also references to quantitative content analysis methodologies:

Krippendorff, Klaus (2004). Content analysis. Wise. ASIN: B01B8SR47Y

Silverman, David (2016). Qualitative research. London: SAGE. ISBN: 1473916569

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We appreciate the reviewer's comments. We modify in the text: a) references to research on content analysis (Krippendorff, 2004. Silverman, 2016); b) we better explain the criteria for selecting experts and their characteristics; c) the explanation of the selection criteria for the sample date, based on availability and organization criteria; d) new references are added in the transparency of public television, specifically 19 new investigations, many of them from the last three years; e) references to previous research are included in the conclusions (Palau-Sampio, 2017; Costa-Sánchez and Túñez-López, 2017; Herzog et al., 2018; Campos-Freire, Vaz-Álvarez and Ufarte Ruiz, 2021; Blasco- Blasco, Rodríguez-Castro, Túñez-López, 2020) and their discussion.

General answer

The authors agree with the reviewers' comments. All revisions have been considered.

-The selection of experts has been justified considering their training, their geographical diversity and their professional / academic nature. The relationship with transparency policies and governance management in corporations has also been justified.

-A page is added on the financing models of corporations. We think that it is good to discuss the academic literature with the idea that the financing models of European public televisions are diverse and have been influenced in the last decade by three fundamental aspects: a) the economic crisis that began in 2008; b) the loss of legitimacy of public services; c) the process of technological convergence.

• We include references to research on content analysis (Krippendorff, 2004. Silverman, 2016)
• We explain the selection criteria of the sample date, by availability and organization criteria.
• 19 new references are added in the transparency of public television.

 -References to previous research are included in the conclusions (Palau-Sampio, 2017; CostaSánchez and Túñez-López, 2017; Herzog et al., 2018; Campos-Freire, Vaz-Álvarez and Ufarte Ruiz, 2021; Blasco-Blasco , Rodríguez-Castro, Túñez-López, 2020) and their discussion.

• In addition, we have corrected other small bugs.

Corrections

Methodology 

In this regard, all 24 respondents were selected taking into account their education (all of them hold a PhD in the field of Social Sciences) and on the basis of geographical diversity (we had participants holding teaching positions in Latin America, Europe and the USA). Most of the scholars selected for the nominal group are researchers in the field of journalism, audio-visual communication, political science, and sociology, although, to a lower extent, they also include professionals from public televisions and managers of news companies working in a variety of departments. Their connection with transparency policies and governance management is underpinned by two aspects: first, most of them have contributed to the project “New values, governance, funding and public audiovisual services for the Internet society: European and Spanish contrasts” (2019-2021) financed by the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Universities, as well as to the project “Indicators of governance, funding, accountability, innovation, quality and public service in European broadcasters applicable to Spain in the digital context” (20162018), financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. Secondly, they have contributed to research into regulatory policies and strategies involving the UE, the States and the corporations themselves on transparency issues. A balanced participation between men and women was achieved and the anonymity of their responses was ensured.

 In the analysis conducted by the authors at the beginning of the 21st century, only 18 western democracies were analysed (nine countries from Northern and Central Europe, five countries from Southern Europe and four from the Atlantic) with two preconditions: a) the existence of competitive political systems with free elections, and b) the existence of public and private media within a consolidated system with clear rules. On this basis, the present article takes into account this analysis to select several public corporations from each model while excluding other States such as for instance those from Central or Eastern Europe.

Funding and management models of the countries analysed 

The funding models of the European public broadcasters are diverse and have been influenced in the latest decade by three fundamental aspects that have indirectly had an impact on an increased demand for transparency: a) the economic crisis that started in 2008; b) the loss of legitimacy of public services; c) the process of technological convergence. These models, by virtue of their income, rely on four mayor sources (Lowe & Berg, 2013): license fee (the most widely used), advertisement, subscription and subsidy, as well as others such as the marketing of broadcasting rights (Juanatey-Boga, Martínez & Castro, 2018). On this basis, the European Broadcasting Union laid down four essential principles for the funding system of the European public broadcasting service: stability, Independence, accountability and transparency (EBU, 2017). In the last decade and on the basis of global figures provided by the European Audiovisual Observatory, a number of differences can be identified in the funding of broadcasters which need to be approached on the basis of the different models (Juanatey-Boga, Martínez & Castro, 2018): firstly, the countries in the south of Europe have not seen their funding increased whether it is because of deep cuts (Portugal and Spain) or the freezing of the license fee  (France and Italy); secondly, the countries under the corporatist model have seen a moderate increase (Germany), a remarkable increase (Belgium) or a huge increase (Sweden) in funding; finally, public broadcasters from the Atlantic model have had different outcomes, with increases in the case of the British public broadcaster and a cut in the case of Ireland. On the whole, the German and British broadcasters (ZDF and BBC respectively) stand out as far as income is concerned, whereas the funding of Spanish RTVE is scarce relative to the size of the country (Corbella, 2020).

Another fundamental aspect that has historically influenced the funding of European public broadcasters has been the role of the State (not only as an auditor but also as the proprietor) and its influence on the media system. In this regard, each of the models described has common as well as divergent characteristics. For instance, in the Polarised Plural Model of Southern Europe, in both Spain and Portugal, the public broadcaster was not conceptualized as a public service (Bustamante, 1989). In Portugal, the management of the broadcaster was not subject to control (Traquina, 1995) and in Spain it has gradually evolved from a mixed commercial stateowned system (with advertising and subsidy) to the current one where advertising has been abolished as a consequence of the demand by the European Commission (which has also affected France) on the rates of business volume of the telecommunications operators (Jivkova Semova, 2011). In the case of Italy, unlike the rest of the neighbouring countries, it was conceptualised as a public service although in 1976 the Italian Constitutional Court “declared void the monopoly of the RAI and from that year until 1990, Italy had no law governing the public broadcaster” (Hallin & Mancini, 2008, p. 115) which also had an impact on its financing. As to the economic management of the liberal model, the news companies are more subject to commercial interests, a good example of this is the BBC or the RTÉ, where political independence comes with certain economic independence. Finally, the corporations in the democratic corporatist model show notable differences on their method of financing, partly due to the internal plurality of State and the participation of sub-state agencies in governance.

Conclusions

The information obtained in this study confirms previous research into institutional and economic transparency as well as into the transparency in the production of contents by European public broadcasters (Palau-Sampio, 2017; Costa-Sánchez & Túñez-López, 2017; Herzog et al., 2018), which differs from results in other latitudes (López-López, López-Golán & UlloaErazo, 2019) and which shows the specificities of the European media system (Campos-Freire, Vaz-Álvarez & Ufarte Ruiz, 2021). Similarly, this study shows the need to move forward towards more integrated and complex assessments with composite indicators so that other aspects such as social value or the efficacy in the management of the corporations can be measured (BlascoBlasco, Rodríguez-Castro, Túñez-López, 2020).

Dates 

The study on accountability processes was conducted between 20 March and 21 April 2021, on the basis of work organisation criteria and the availability of researchers.

New references

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