Abstract

"An Unlikely Mixture" tells the relatively unknown story of Chile's rather successful public broadcaster, TVN, a world pioneer of market-oriented public broadcasting. A survivor of General Pinochet's manipulations which by law cannot receive a cent of public funding, TVN incarnates all the contradictions of two apparently irreconcilable principles: that of a social mandate, and that of a commercial logic in a continent where private, monopolistic broadcasters are the dominant species and most state-owned outlets are socially irrelevant, underfunded, or heavily politicised. Its ambiguities, balanced by corporate success and political autonomy in the restored Chilean democracy, provide a unique case of analysis worth considering.