After two decades of 'dual broadcasting' in Europe, the demise of public service broadcasting (PSB) is not yet as serious as forecast. In recent years, public broadcasters in some European countries even managed to regain public attention or programme rights they had lost to their commercial counterparts. Public broadcasters are currently at the heart of public attention. This broad discussion and concern are needed, as the basic problems of PSB are numerous: the commercialization and digitization of the broadcast sector leading to a multiplication of distribution channels; the individualization of society; and an overall unfavourable political climate with governments seeming less willing to provide adequate financial conditions (Donges and Puppis, 2003). Table 1 shows the relatively limited growth of the public broadcasters in comparison to the other branches of the EU audio-visual market.According to Achille (1994), the origin of this crisis was threefold: identity, financing and operating problems. All three elements are still very much at stake nowadays. Murdock and Golding (1999) rightly signalled two parallel movements at the end of the 1980s and 1990s that tipped the balance of power from the culture to the market paradigm: the ascendancy of marketization policies within the European Union (EU) and its major member countries (despite the more culture-oriented approach of the European Parliament and the Council of Europe), as well as accelerating convergence trends of ICTs, telecommunications and audio-visual industries.

This article will provide an overview of recent conceptualizations of media responsibility and accountability, and related concepts such as governance. Furthermore, new arrangements for media governance will be looked at in line with the four accountability mechanisms proposed in this article: political, market, professional and public accountability. Finally, some interesting media accountability practices to be found throughout Western Europe and across the Atlantic will be presented.

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This article looks at the television landscape in Indonesia that has undergone a major transformation in recent decades. As one of the 'Asian Tigers' Indonesia introduced commercial television in two waves between 1989 and 2002 as a complement to the traditional State broadcaster TVRI that promoted national unity under Suharto's New Order regime. Commercial TV stations contributed tremendously to civil society in the period 1998-2000 by supporting the movement for democratic reform that led to the resignation of president Suharto. A performance assessment of the current Indonesian television scene shows that most commercial TV stations, after a short coalition with civil society, went 'back to business' again in the context of a relatively young but highly competitive Indonesian market.