In just one week, we have had two reminders of the fragility of public service broadcasting in the UK, both at the BBC and beyond.
First the BBC axed Rough Justice. This is a programme that has helped to quash 15 convictions, overturning some appalling miscarriages of justice. It may not sound like a lot in 27 years, but that's 15 lives utterly changed and 15 victories for truth and fairness, an achievement that offered hope to many wrongly convicted prisoners languishing in Britain's jails.
The kind of journalism required to unpick a case that has sent someone to jail is not easy - it means painstaking, meticulous research, winning the confidence of witnesses and police officers, commissioning fresh forensic tests, seeking legal advice.
It is therefore expensive - and that's why the BBC chose to close the programme, at a time when budgets are under pressure. The corporation claims it will cover miscarriages of justice through Panorama and existing current affairs programmes, but it's hard to believe these programmes will have the time, patience and inclination to follow up obscure, low-profile cases without the news value of the likes of Barry George.
Rough Justice seems to me an almost textbook example of public service broadcasting - it does demonstrable public good and would be supported by any right-minded citizen whether they watched the programme or not. It could not conceivably be funded by the market, although I am told that it used to get very respectable ratings. Its demise has to be seen as a defeat for journalism and for democracy at large.
Outside the BBC, public service broadcasting is in even poorer shape. ITV's decision to get rid of Sunday political programmes, while commercially defensible, ends a proud 40-year tradition that stretched from David Frost's early LWT shows through the legendary Weekend World to Walden and Jonathan Dimbleby.
Programmes such as Weekend World and World in Action gave ITV a reputation for current affairs at least as high as the BBC's. That tradition has shrivelled. Such public service commitments as it has left are shoehorned into populist formats such as Tonight with Trevor McDonald or residual fig-leaves like The South Bank Show. Children's programming and regional news are dying fast.
It is not all ITV's fault, of course: the company is now prey to market forces in a way unimaginable 20 years ago and can do little but heed commercial priorities. And doubtless we can survive without Sunday Edition. But the more serious issue is that if ITV opts out of high-quality, high-minded broadcasting, the BBC will have no real competition for standards. Monopolies tend to lead to complacency, an aversion to innovation and risk-taking, and a temptation to strike cosy deals with the powerful.
If somebody else did a version of Rough Justice, would the BBC have axed the strand so readily? Would Newsnight be so good were it not for Channel 4 News? Would Panorama retain investigative rigour were it not for the example of programmes such as Dispatches and Unreported World?
The House of Commons select committee on culture, media and sport drew attention to this only yesterday. In recommending what has become known as an "arts council of the airwaves", committee chairman John Whittingdale argued that we should aim "to sustain plurality and to bring the benefits of competition to the provision of public service content that the market would not provide".
Quite rapidly - and there are those who would dispute this because definition is always problematic - we are losing public service programmes from our commercial channels. The consequent lack of competition for the BBC, combined with the corporation's financial exigencies and its reluctance to sacrifice ratings, could allow the same tradition to wither there too.
This is a big, complex subject and no one can say that it is easy for the politicians, regulators and broadcasters to find a balance between technological pressures and commercial reality on the one hand, and that ever nebulous quality, the public interest, on the other. Ofcom and the government are aware of what's happening and are both examining the issue. But this week has given us a snapshot of the problem and its hazardous implications.
