Public service broadcasting (PSB) is closely associated with John Reith, the first Director General of the BBC, who argued that the fundamental purposes of broadcasting were to ‘educate, inform and entertain’. For Reith this implied that broadcasting should be protected from commercial pressures and the profit motive; should provide radio and television programmes with universal audience appeal and reach; should be organized as a monopoly to ensure ‘unified control’, and should be closely regulated to guarantee high quality programming (Stewart & David 1999, p. 224). Broadcasting’s ‘responsibility’ was to ‘improve the audience’, to ‘carry into the greatest number of homes everything that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement’: a responsibility which frequently triggered the criticism that PSB was inherently paternalistic.
In 1985, the Broadcasting Research Unit (BRU) identified eight ‘main principles’ of PSB. (1) Geographic universality – programmes should be available to everyone; (2) universality of Appeal – programmes should cater for all tastes; (3) minorities (ethnic or cultural) should enjoy particular programming provision; (4) broadcasters should nurture a sense of national identity and community; (5) broadcasting should be protected from vested interests, whether economic and political, to ensure impartiality and balance; (6) costs should be shared equally by everyone who receives the service – the licence fee; (7) broadcasting should be structured to encourage competition between broadcasters resulting in higher quality programming not increased audience size or dumbing down; (8) public guidelines for broadcasting should liberate not restrict programme-makers (BRU 1985, p. 128-130). These principles of public service broadcasting have provided not merely an inspirational ideal type, but an account of the particular organizational form which broadcasting has assumed in both the public and private sectors of British broadcasting.
公共服务广播（PSB）是密切相关的约翰瑞斯，英国广播公司第一任主任，他认为广播的基本目的是教育，娱乐和”。对于思这意味着广播应防止商业压力和利润动机；应提供广播和电视节目与观众的吸引力和达到普遍；应组成一个垄断确保统一控制，并应密切监管保证高质量编程（斯图尔特&戴维，1999，p. 224）。广播的“责任”是“提高观众，“带进家的一切，最好是在人类知识的每一部的最大数量，努力和成就：责任经常引发PSB本质上是家长式的批评。
1985，广播研究单位（BRU）确定了八个主要原则的PSB。（1）地理性计划应提供给所有人的普遍性；（2）上诉方案应满足所有的味道；（3）民族（种族或文化）应享有特别的程序规定；（4）广播应该培育民族认同感和社区；（5）广播应该保护既得利益者，无论是经济和政治，以确保公正和平衡；（6）成本应该共享同样的人接待服务牌照费；（7）广播的结构应鼓励产生较高质量的程序不增加观众人数或降低广播公司之间的竞争；（8）公共广播指南应该解放不限制节目制作者（BRU 1985，第128-130）。这些公共广播服务的原则，提供的不仅仅是一个鼓舞人心的理想类型，但一个帐户的特定的组织形式，广播在英国广播电视的公共部门和私人部门承担。
