The Public TV Story

Focus had an interesting piece for today about German public TV (ARD/ZDF).

The government requires a annual review by German public TV, and one of the things that the two networks had to go and admit was that more Germans are now putting their off-time into the internet.....and there is this suggestion that more Germans (particularly from the 15-to-25 age group)....are using streaming video instead of regular TV. 

I've often essayed pieces about this and how it's frustrating the public TV crowd.  They aren't reaching this younger group, and there's people than ever who'd like to see the TV-media tax halted.

According to the numbers....from the German population of 82-million....roughly 62-million are on-line for some portion of the day. That comes out to roughly 90-percent of the population.

Women more than men?  By one hour per day more.

They even demonstrated that from the 14-to-29 year old group....their average per day was around 4.5 hours. 

Where does this lead German public TV?  Well....they've invested a fair amount of money into this concept network....designed strictly for the younger crowd....ONLY available via the internet.  It's been roughly six month now and no one much talks about the numbers or how much data-streaming is going on.  I sat on a couple of occasions and viewed the contents.  Oddly, they are focused on public debate forums which were hyped up for the college-age kids....whether they were watching this type of format or not....is an unknown.

Since the 1950s....ARD, and later on in the 1960s....ZDF....both were prime-movers in public attitudes, perceptions, and motivation.  TV shows were designed in some ways....with themes....to highlight something that the TV crowd wanted you to think about.  Chat forums were arranged with conversation going to various themes that the political parties or agenda folks wanted you hyped in a dramatic fashion. Now?  This presents a problem.

Affected by fake news?  The public networks will tell you this point-blank.  They worry about this. They think that people aren't capable of grasping things, and only by watching the totally neutral and intellectual networks of Germany....will you be capable of handling reality or democracy.

I know.....one can laugh over this way of thinking but that's how we got to this point.

If you ask me...somewhere in about a decade....some folks are going to demand a massive cut, and ZDF will end up disappearing off into the sunset to help the system survive. 

I brought this topic up with my wife....the topic 'fare' that you see on prime-time now from ZDF/ARD from Friday, Saturday and Sunday....from 8:15 to 11:30 each night.  Thirty-percent of the time...it'll be a murder movie of some type, or some lame 2-star romance movie that only people over the age of forty-five can appreciate.  At least one marginal game-show for older-generation Germans will be on for two hours (you always notice in their audience that most everyone is over the age of fifty) is featured.  And for Sunday evening will be some public forum chat show with VIPs trying to hype you on something political.

About six times a year....the two networks go out and feature some massive high-cost historical movie....typically from the 1800s or WW II, and they will go on for weeks talking about their epic production.

From older Germans, if you bring this up....they all believe in ARD and ZDF....insisting that they have some purpose.  Then you start to get into the crowd under the age of forty, and their beliefs just aren't as strong, and folks under twenty-five?  You won't find that many people thrilled over the media-tax.