Germany’s most important media researcher says what’s wrong with ARD and ZDF

A tough accusation. What makes these transmitter bureaucracies?
Maintain standard TV and radio formats that are doing well by quota. Everything else is annoying. Basically, it’s about “rest in peace”. This has been cemented by the judgments of the Federal Constitutional Court and by the policies of the responsible federal states.

Rest gently? These days the parties are talking about a reform of ARD and ZDF. How can they be trusted to solve the problems?
The media policy just let it go, there were no mass protests by the contributors. Now everyone is shocked by the recent scandals. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though. Frau Schlesinger is a pawn sacrifice. She has behaved awkwardly, a left-wing journalist as Raffke director is a godsend for the media. But the RBB is actually just a small broadcaster that was able to distract from the problems of the big ARD stations.

What surprises me a lot is the now striking lack of satisfaction-capable personalities in the system. Even a patriarch like ZDF’s Dieter Stolte always had a philosophical foundation and was willing to discuss things with people who thought differently. Today the power-conscious technocrat rules, who grew up completely in an incestuous system.

>> Read here: In the maze of the scandalous institutions – how ARD and ZDF can get back on track

The provisional ARD chairman Tom Buhrow now wants to put everything to the test, things can’t go on as before.
Yes, he decided to throw himself behind the moving train. It also seems a bit strange when someone discovers very late that they can think for themselves. The WDR boss is even classified internally by ARD as a “light sailor”. It all looks like something out of Smurftown. It is significant that there is a head-strong directorship in Cologne along with a press office, which, however, apparently cannot fulfill the normal business of communication for the media. So you hire external communications consultants for a lot of money. That also seems to be necessary.

It is avoided at all costs to spend too much money for the actual business purpose. Lutz Hachmeister

How to create a simpler structure for the public broadcasters?
Someone would have to initiate the reduction of bureaucracy in terms of media policy, but only the decision-makers themselves, who benefit from the status quo, have an overview. In any case, the previous media policy under the chairmanship of Rhineland-Palatinate, where the prime minister also heads the board of directors of ZDF, cannot be in charge. Incidentally, the Mainz broadcaster is better managed as a central institution, but on the other hand the influence of party political color theory is greater there, represented by two “friend groups”.

ARD and ZDF get 8.4 billion euros annually. To what extent is this sum incorrectly spent?
It is avoided at all costs to spend too much money for the actual business purpose, ie the production of programs. Innovation here means more work. In classic areas such as news and foreign reporting, ARD and ZDF still work reasonably well. In addition, however, the daily routine and dealing with oneself were much more comfortable than any change. That applied to everyone, to the management level, the broadcasting councils and also to the media politicians.

That seems to be the end of it. Countries like North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria are calling for a commission or a convention to redefine the basis for the public broadcasters.
At least that’s an announcement. Of course, it will be important to find people for such a commission who are really familiar with the operations and programs of ARD and ZDF. The big shock came in the 1990s with the new private broadcasters. You didn’t know how to react: adapt or follow your own line? It has never been possible to solve this problem. A large part of the public service identity has been lost. There is a lack of many things today: more documentaries for prime time, money for intensive research, recognizable authors. It’s a joke that there isn’t a single reasonable interview format apart from the many talk shows.

The directors and program managers know how to cloud the committees. Lutz Hachmeister

The current ARD scandals have revealed serious deficits in supervision…
If a group of amateur players is to supervise, nothing else can come of it. Even a well-trained economist or accountant would not understand the games being played in these bureaucracies. Internal insights are missing.

This broadcasting is paid for by all citizens, who are represented in the committees by socially relevant groups. That’s a democratic model.
I have nothing against that. These group representatives could work on program advisory boards for the individual broadcasters. However, I strongly advocate an external central supervisory body based on the British model of Ofcom. It controls the entire media system, including parts of the BBC. That would be a key reform step, as is the case in Canada, Australia, Switzerland and Austria. Only in Germany, with its hyper-federalism, is something like this not to be found.

The ARD wants to help in the future with external experts who work in or for the committees.
This leads to nothing. The broadcasting councils in particular have so far been purely acclamation committees, sometimes even knocking on the table during lectures by the hierarchs. The directors and program managers know how to cloud the committees.

ARD and ZDF would have to become more experimental. Lutz Hachmeister

In the private sector, performance-based payment with target agreements is commonplace. That immediately led to a scandal at RBB. How can that be?
Bonuses are total nonsense for the public broadcasters. Because basically only savings in the program are rewarded. That’s the only way you can get the money. Everything else is continuous, legalized items. A cut is necessary. The system needs a baseline measurement again – with the central criterion of how much of the budget actually flows into the program and what is used for pure self-administration.

Among other things, the FDP demands that an artistic director should not earn more than a federal chancellor.
Rightly so. But the FDP also suggested cutting the broadcasting fee by half – then there would be nothing left of the program. It would be better to finance the “institutions” – which unfortunately they are – through taxes, as in France. That would at least have the advantage that the bureaucratic registration of fees would be eliminated.

In surveys, citizens have recently been very critical of ARD and ZDF. Is acceptance fading?
Yes, more and more ARD and ZDF no longer consider it indispensable. This is especially true for young people who get information from multiple platforms. The brand value drops drastically. The public service system has been left behind aesthetically and dramaturgically by Netflix, Amazon and Co. It shouldn’t have been like this. ARD and ZDF would have to become more experimental. “Tatort” episodes, “Das Boot” or Fassbinder productions of the 1970s were absolutely pioneering for their time.

ARD and ZDF don’t even have a joint media library.
If it is not decreed from outside, then it will never happen. ZDF doesn’t want that at all. In Mainz they want to keep as much as possible in their station and definitely not be associated too closely with the ARD. Then the old idea of ​​a German BBC would resurface.

Mr. Hachmeister, thank you very much for the interview.

More: Buhrow: Need a new social contract for public broadcasters