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Konrad Mitschka Public Value Report One of the key distinguishing features of Public Service Media from commercial media is defined by its orientation toward the common good, its Public Value. PSM does not achieve commercial revenues, but remits supporting the democratic, social, and cultural cohesion of society. For the concept’s originator, Mark Moore, Public Value is linked to the nature of public institutions generating Public Value. Moore described the Public Value concept in 1995 with the help of four essential questions: → How much do citizens trust an institution? → How does an institution improve society? → How is the value of the service assessed? → How efficient is the institution?

The BBC transformed the concept during the 9th Royal Charter in 2004. The ORF followed 2007, establishing the “Public Value Competence Center”, focusing on all challenges affecting the Public Service mission. Since then, ORF has documented the fulfillment of its core mission annually in the Public Value Report, addressing the regulatory authority, parliament, the science community, and other relevant stakeholders. It is published in print and online and available at zukunft.ORF.at. The multiple award-winning Public Value Report is – according to ORF’s Public Value structure – divided into five quality dimensions and 18 performance categories, which are derived from the regulations valid for ORF media production. For example, the mandate of objectivity (“ORF shall ensure the objective selection and communication of information in the form of news …”) results in the performance category “trust”. The performance category “diversity” results from the diversity requirement mentioned several times in the law and programme guidelines (“diversity of the interests of the entire audience”; “respect for diversity of opinion”). The performance category “added value” results from various regulations on stimulating the creative industries (“As a commissioner and frequent first publisher of artistic works and scientific findings, ORF shall make a contribution to cultural events.”) etc. The report summarizes the 18 performance categories in five dimensions. These express the “individual value” – i. e., the benefit of ORF for the individual citizen – as well as its value for society, for Austria, for European integration and – in the sense of Austrian broadcasting subscribers or households as clients – the “corporate value”. The overall dimensions and categories are: → Individual Value (trust, service, responsibility, entertainment, science&education) → Social Value (orientation, diversity, proximity to citizens, inclusion, culture) → Nation (Austrian) Value (identity, federalism, value creation) → International Value (European integration, global perspective) → Corporate Value (transparency, innovation, competence) 

All categories focus on the distinctiveness of media content, quality and impact of programs. The report documents ORF’s performance as comprehensively as possible, both quantitatively and qualitatively. For example, the number of broadcasting hours of factual TV, the number of radio news items and the number of stories on ORF.at are published annually in the performance category “Trust”. The category “Responsibility” presents ORF’s performance on accessibility with the help of figures. In the category science&education”, as in other categories, the number of contributions or programes on a certain keyword is published, the category “value creation” documents, for example, competitions, public events, concerts which, among other things, are organized by ORF to stimulate intellectual and economic value creation in Austria. In addition to figures and a selection of other data, e. g., awards won by ORF staff, award-winning films and series, training courses designed to strengthen the competence of ORF staff, ORF also documents the fulfilment of its mandate in qualitative terms. To this end, the Public Value Competence Centre invites representatives from ORF departments every year who have created high-quality productions, to explain motives and backgrounds of their work. These ORF employees, mostly editors, often managers, explain their understanding of Public Service quality to provide the recipients with information on editorial enhancement. The selection of authors reads like a Who’s Who of award-winning media work: Armin Wolf, Martin Thür, Dieter Bornemann, Zoran Dobric and Hanno Settele are among them, as are Sabine Weber, Elisabeth Scharang, Barbara Battisti or Christa Hofmann and many more. But the Public Value Report also repeatedly publishes external voices commenting on Public Service Media quality. The scientific community is represented by various experts, like Matthias Karmasin, Larissa Krainer, Thomas Steinmaurer and Corinna Wenzel from Austria as well as Graham Murdock, Gabriele Siegert, Werner Weidenfeld, Mark Eisenegger, Christian Fuchs and Kurt Imhof and many others from international research institutions. Numerous media experts and journalists, such as Anna Maria Wallner (“Die Presse”), Armin Thurnher (“Falter”), Hubert Huber from the “Kurier” or Amy Goodman (“Democracy Now!”) have contributed to the understanding of Public Service Media quality, as have prominent representatives of Austrian civil society, such as Cornelius Obonya, Michael Landau or Martin Schenk. The list of authors who provide their normative or evaluative contribution to public service quality grows each year, reflecting the fact that questions of media quality are of increasing importance in a market subject to disruptive change. Ultimately, each contribution provides its own answer to the question of who in particular benefits from Public Service Media, how trust in Public Service Media can be ensured, how efficiently ORF acts, and finally: what are the values supporting the democratic, social and cultural cohesion of society in various media-related ways – thus ensuring that the discourse on public service quality helps to create the Public Value of tomorrow.