2023-05-02 05:59:32
And he doesn’t want to give up his pension either. In the crisis of public broadcasting, the MDR continues to cement privileges.
The previous administrative director of Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR), Ralf Ludwig, has been elected as the new MDR director.Rico Thumser/epd
If you want to send the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) an invoice, don’t just send it off, no! He needs an order confirmation, a contract number, a content item number and a WBS element number. Whatever the digits mean, they all belong on the bill. That seems overly ambitious and is clearly the result of fraudulent maneuvers with invented bills that were foisted on the broadcaster in the noughties. The former production manager of the children’s channel Marco Kirchhof had practiced that, for example billed expenses for a stage that had never been delivered, used and dismantled. Nobody noticed. The MDR didn’t even miss the six million that were embezzled. The TV entertainment boss’s bizarre financial juggling during this period also went unnoticed. Fake invoices no longer appear in the MDR and that’s a good thing.
Marco Kirchhof in his apartment in BerlinEmmanuel Contini
One could almost get the impression that this three-state institution for Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt has, after many scandals, developed into a model of honesty for the ARD, eliminated sources of error and worked through everything. Now that the small RBB has to clarify completely different sums and a battalion of lawyers is bending over the system of the ousted director, whose salary of 338,000 euros was apparently not enough. Additional bonuses, windy consulting contracts, excessive financial planning, tens of millions of deficits in the station – the escalating self-service mentality at management level plunged the entire public service system into the most dangerous crisis since its foundation. One would think that the ARD would defend this priceless gift of the post-war period with toe and claw out of self-interest. But no, the RBB still needs the anger of the employees, strikes and protests to at least question the retention of privileges in the hierarchies.
Ex-director Patricia Schlesinger is currently suing for a monthly pension of 18,400 euros. Retirement benefits are an interesting form of additional payments: They are paid to members of the management board when they want or have to leave the station but are too young to retire. Nobody should become poor. Such a heavenly regulation currently also applies to the MDR administrative director Ralf Ludwig. He just wanted to save her over to his next position as director from November 2023. However, in good time before the election, there were angry objections from the workforce to “lavish service contracts that were perceived as indecent” with pensions. According to the Sächsische Zeitung, the general staff council wanted Ludwig to refrain from doing so as director.
Oh, always these questions about fee money!
And? Does he renounce? After all, the 54-year-old can soon expect a jump in salary from 275,000 to probably 310,000 euros as director. He could save something. The MDR press office diligently ignores the question from the Berliner Zeitung about this waiver, and does not simply answer yes or no on the second attempt, but refers to the MDR annual report, paragraph 30. But it will not only be finished when the director is in office is? Oh, always these questions about fee money! As if everyone’s business. Let’s just assume that everything stays the way it is. For the outgoing MDR director Karola Wille, the cash value of her pension is reported at 4.6 million euros.
In the general election in March, Ralf Ludwig received twelve dissenting votes, although he had no competitor. In the endless expanses of Saxony, Thuringia and Anhalt, the board of directors was only able to filter out one suitable candidate from 29 applicants: Ralf Ludwig, born in Borna, with MDR since 1999. Not a familiar face like in most ARD stations, but an administrator. According to the FAZ, he enjoys a good reputation as a competent and knowledgeable finance manager in the broadcaster network.
But wasn’t he also head of the finance department when, under his supervision, the millions in the children’s channel disappeared for years and finances in television entertainment developed a life of their own? Sure he was. But he was not responsible for the “direct control” of the processes, the press office explains. Who else? Which of the gentlemen with the high salaries was responsible and got fired? Well nobody.
The MDR basks in supposedly exemplary enlightenment
Instead of an answer, the press office sends a statement from 2011. It mentions the head of administration at the time, who voluntarily resigned without acknowledging guilt. Since then, the MDR has basked in supposedly exemplary explanations. At that time it was just the beginning. Private investigators only presented their investigation report and the bill for it in 2015: 6.63 million euros, according to the Thüringer Allgemeine, an order without a tender. The MDR is silent on this to this day and keeps the absurdly expensive investigation under wraps. Perhaps she is describing how the fraud took place in a most welcoming environment, in a system of opaquely nested subsidiaries.
It’s none of the public’s business. Production manager Marco Kirchhof was sentenced to six years in prison and has now written a book about his gambling addiction. In it, he admits his guilt and recalls how easily he was scammed due to a lack of control. How the children’s channel had to pay for overpriced MDR subsidiaries because it was located in a city without a media environment. As the station’s annual accounts were never allowed to show a surplus, competition was undesirable. How he was pushed into “financial magic” when a boss wanted an expensive farewell party.
The future MDR director will know the report and the quirks in the system well, which is perhaps why no other candidate was considered for the post. After his election, Ludwig also showed a willingness to save. No, not with the pension. But in the case of journalist positions, he cannot guarantee that there will be no cuts in the future. At the same time he announced a more regional orientation of the station, a focus on digitization, education and information. And an Erzgebirge thriller like that on ZDF, which he would also like for his station. Does that sound like a departure in the existential crisis of public broadcasters – or like “keep it up”?
After his election, Ludwig showed a willingness to save – in journalistic positions
WDR boss Tom Buhrow recently called for a reform of the system – with a new constitution, a round table, without bans on thinking, such as a merger of ARD and ZDF. One will now get to know the inertia forces of the institution. The interim director of the highly indebted RBB has an annual salary of EUR 295,000 and a monthly rental subsidy of EUR 1,000. The MDR boss wishes more retirement money for himself and his loved ones and a new thriller. There are no more fake bills, only ARD pension claims in the growing billions.
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