Searching for public value in innovation coordination: How the Eurovision Song Contest was used to innovate the public service media model in Estonia

Abstract

This article addresses the ‘wicked’ problems met by contemporary public service media (PSM) institutions: to address the fragmentation of audiences across platforms; to have a positive impact on civil society and societal coherence; to facilitate cultural diversity; and to work with private creative industries and facilitate their growth. These objectives can be reduced to a conflict in producing both public and private value. In this article, we build on the combination of innovation systems theory and public value theory to investigate the interrelationships between the production of these different forms of value. Our case study is Estonia’s national pre-selection competition for the Eurovision Song Contest, which is innovative in terms of its cross-media framing and its approach to working with private partners to facilitate the development of the Estonian popular music system.