Quality Taste or Tasting Quality? Excellence in Public Service Media from an Audience Perspective.

chapter reports on a study in the Netherlands that compares television quality from an audience point of view with professional perspectives on quality television. While holding on to the concept of ‘quality’ as a normative standard for public service media, the study questions the discrepancy between a common definition of quality television as a particular reputation, a range of genres or a distinguishing sign of ‘good taste’ on the one hand, and on the other the decline in shares and ratings for quality programming, even among the traditional ‘quality audience’ (comprised of the political and cultural elite). The chapter’s objective is to explain this gap.1 These findings are pertinent to growing concerns about what constitutes quality in public service media [PSM]. The first part of the chapter is devoted to analysis of the ‘crisis of quality programming in public service media. The second part seeks answers by approaching the issues discussed from the perspective of audiences