Sky is the example

Public service broadcasters are expected to serve the public wholeheartedly, but they could manipulate the phone-in programmings and squander people's trust. The commercial broadcasters like Sky are not expected to be good example in this, but they have been singled out for praised by the regulator Ofcom. As Sky chief excecutive James Murdoch posited, we may not be liked by the establishment, but we earned people's trust.
We seem to live in an age of confusion. How could this happen? Sky, often teased or debased by people for their commercial greed, indeed have been free of the recent phone-in scandle hitting public service broadcasters like BBC. Some people may accuse Sky of offering the lowest common denominator regarding commercial programming, but they also offer many high-brow programs, like arts channel. Sky News also enjoy great reputation for its timeliness and reliablity. Really good stuff!
James said that is because they, genuinely, care about customers. He is right in saying so. But I think there is more reason than that.
UK is blessed with public service tradition, compared with the overcommercialised United States, and UK also benefits from its mixed media system. You got dedicated PSB, commercial PSB, and pay satellite tv like Sky and pay cable tv like Virgin media. In this mix, the overcommercialisation of sky and virgin could be checked and balanced. On the other hand, psb also can't keep paternalistic as what they had done before, trying to educate people about what is good and what is bad. They are under pressure to improve programming, making good popular and making popular good. The mixed media system could most easily lead to healthy competition.
This is the bottom reason why Sky doesnot join the ranks of those US commercial broadcasters, and continue to provide some high quality programs to serve the public interest.
Unfortunately, when trying to attract consumers' attention, the public service broadcaster went too far, and took an audacious gamble on their reputation. It is a disgrace to them, in particular given the good example by Sky.
But in a mixed media system, the PSB is under pressure to correct mistakes, and get better. not only because they are using public money, but also because they don't want Sky to set example for them, which would be a shame to their psb status.