"This chapter analyses contextual factors that are common to the seven countries of this region that affect developing a genuine public service orientation in media policies and performance. By better understanding historical legacies, inadequate technological development and late entry into digitalisation, and problems rooted in economic underdevelopment and clientelism, the prognosis for the emergence of ‘networked societies’ under illiberal conditions is at least tardy and perhaps impractical in the foreseeable future, at least. Contextual factors prioritise a set of values that greatly complicate the development of public service broadcasting in technological and democratic terms, much less the even more complex transition to public service media." (Abstract)