Public TV in Germany

I will essay on occasion about public TV in Germany, and it's pluses, minuses, screw-ups, costs, and public frustrations.  Up until the 1980s....you had no other choices but public TV.  As commercial TV arrived (having to blast through the public TV roadblocks).....the public found that there were certain advantages with commercial TV.

Today, if you go out to the working-class public and the under-25-age group....you will find a fair amount of disenchantment going on with the public TV empire (under ARD).  The monthly tax (17.50 Euro, or roughly $20) has gotten a growing number of people upset, and the chatter about another increase coming in 2021?  Well....it's safe to say that more than one-third of German society want the situation minimized (meaning a decrease in public TV structure, and maybe a decrease in the TV/media tax).

So it got brought up today via N-TV (commercial news in Germany) that ARD (the controller of the 'empire')....has a paper that they privately use as their strategy paper, whenever talking or referencing the need to state their purpose in broadcasting.

The document name?  The "Framing Manual".

It's a 89-page document which basically lays out how you always talk about the positives of the public service, and present good/strong arguments in support of it.

At some point, it even goes to suggest that the term 'charge' should be avoided when talking about the tax, and instead use the term 'our financial participation'.

Another objective in the document revolves around slogans.  A good ARD slogan is "We are yours." There's even a suggestive slogan of "We take everyone seriously - even your grandmother." I laughed when I read that one, because it implies that the programming is mostly designed for a generation that is advancing in years.

For better or worse, the manual is a tool for management within ARD to continually state their need to exist, and that taxation must continue on (no doubt to increase).  The hindrance for ARD and the public TV empire is that a growing number of young people simply don't view any of the public TV offerings.  My German son (27 years old) will grin and readily admit that he hasn't watched a single hour of public TV offerings for at least 15 years.  He will point bluntly at his associates who all share the same view....public TV in German has little to offer.

What the intellectuals at ARD missed back in the 1990s?  Their formula of high-intellect topics, crime dramas, sports, public forum chats, game-shows, live TV interviews, and programming designed mostly for people over the age of fifty.....simply didn't sell to Germans under the age of thirty.  When the governor's board went to ARD a couple of years ago, and told them they had to go and invent a sub-network to do fit entirely for the youth audience or face annihilation in the future.....they invented the network, and went entirely with data-streaming (you can't get the network off the satellite, cable or antenna).  Behind the powercurve?  Oh, by an entire decade.....they missed their opportunity.

Will this document get brought up in a ARD-produced public chat forum?  Probably not.

It's just another sign of what is coming in the next decade, as enough voters stand up and pressure the TV tax to be kept at 17.50 Euro a month, and harsh talk by ARD about 'cuts' occur.  At some point, the public will call their bluff, and just say fine....go cut Channel Two (ZDF) entirely, and proceed on.  At that point, the management folks are in for a rough ride.