Saving on the financial abyss
RBB director Katrin Vernau
What: picture alliance/dpa/Christophe Gateau
The scandal-ridden RBB has to save in order not to lose its independence. The plan that interim director Katrin Vernau has now presented is logical. But it also shows the dangers facing public service broadcasting.
“RBB is repositioning itself” was the headline of the press release from the public broadcaster for Berlin and Brandenburg. According to the first paragraph, it was possible to “adjust” expenditure to income again. In other words: no longer causing a deficit because the costs have gotten out of hand in recent years (as with other ARD stations). The new RBB director Katrin Vernau clearly describes this development as “mismanagement”. Which doesn’t make things any better, but at least it’s clear.
The accounting adjustment has its price. That is savings of 49 million euros. If the sum were not saved by the end of 2024, there would be a risk of “a financial abyss”, says Vernau. Since the artistic director came to the station at a time when it was having its darkest hour, she can now use drastic rhetoric to announce tough decisions with no alternative – even without the previous team of directors, which has or has been completely resigned. Vernau’s message: For the RBB it’s about surviving. With persistently red figures, the times as an independent ARD institution would have been numbered.
The announced package contains many measures that make sense and show that the broadcaster under Vernau has undergone a much-needed reality check. Always bearing in mind, of course, that only the massive allegations against the administration of ex-director Patricia Schlesinger made this reform possible in the first place. Without Schlesinger’s alleged misconduct, which was mainly uncovered by “Business Insider” (like WELT, it belongs to Axel Springer), the RBB would, in Vernau’s terminology, continue to broadcast in the direction of the abyss.
RBB Moderator Jörg Thadeusz
Quelle: picture alliance / Geisler-Fotopress/Thomas Bartilla/Geisler-Fotopres
Specifically, the construction of a new media house has already been abandoned, and real estate is also being sold. By the end of 2024, 100 jobs are to be cut. Instead of four, there will only be two directors on the executive board, and the “above-average number of non-tariff employees” is to be reduced by half. So self-criticism works – but again, it must not be forgotten that the RBB broadcasting company has grown up until last year, which should never have been possible in this form. In this respect, the RBB is certainly not an isolated case in the ARD.
However, the austerity measures also show the ambivalence of the situation. Only public broadcasting that is well positioned in terms of costs is viable for the future – but since so many costs are fixed in the broadcasters, the austerity plan also sacrifices programs that the station should actually stick to for its attractiveness. It’s not about programs that aren’t accepted by the audience, but about programs that are taken out of the program because there aren’t enough alternatives.
The “victims” of the austerity course have so far included the program “Thadeusz and the Observers” (with WELT colleague Claudia Kade), which will be discontinued at the end of the year, a program planned for 2024 with Dieter Nuhr for the ARD theme week and the one that has just started Literature show “Studio Orange” with Sophie Passmann, of which there should be another season this year. The RBB no longer wants to co-finance the “ARD-Mittagsmagazin” and “considerable” savings are to be made on fictional productions – the program budget is to be reduced by 21 million euros this year and next. As part of the overall ARD strategy, money is to be reallocated to non-linear, i.e. digitally available, formats in order to reach more younger viewers.
(Addendum: RBB points out that Sophie Passmann’s “Studio Orange” program is not a “victim” of the austerity measures. After all, there will be another season of the literary program this year. This is also what the text says. On the original one WORLD inquiry as to which programs were affected by the austerity package, the RBB had referred to “Studio Orange” – other media had also reported accordingly.)
Now one might object that a debate program by (and for journalists) and a young literary format are not the world, not a regional unique selling point and so on. And yet – one less fictional TV film may hurt the producer industry, the viewers will not miss it because of the oversupply. What they will miss, however, are information formats that other broadcasters do not have in this form. And the viewers who then regret it are often those who have no problem paying the license fee.
“Studio Orange” with Sophie Passman
Source: picture alliance/dpa/ARD Kultur/RBB/Christiane Pausch
In short: What is happening at the RBB is also a harbinger for the other public institutions, regardless of “mismanagement”. A while ago, WDR director Tom Buhrow gave a widely acclaimed speech advising on reforms that would strengthen the public service core and eliminate double and triple offers. In Austria, the ORF has just announced a savings program of 300 million euros, which could also fall victim to special interest channels and a radio symphony orchestra.
A downsizing of public service broadcasting is unavoidable in the future – and it would be forward-looking if the broadcasters now agreed on what they want to offer viewers and listeners. So far there has been little sign of this determination to make sensible renunciations.