Regional TV Chatter

 Focus brought up this 'comical' argument this morning....from two regional public TV organizations, and it's worth a moment to discuss this.

I've essayed a few times over the past two months over the TV tax issue (currently at 17.50 Euro a month per house).  The TV/radio public 'empire' has said it needs to progress to a higher fee....to cover bills (the new amount suggested, 18.36 Euro a month).  

Well....the sixteen states were to vote on this, and it was to start 1 January 2021.  It failed, with Saxony-Anhalt saying 'NO'.

The 'NO' is based upon the issue that over a decade ago....most of the states told ARD/ZDF and the public radio folks....to reorganize and lessen their budget requirements.  In simple terms....almost nothing was done. Saxony's leadership said you need to show movement to better management.  

If you bring up the public TV/radio business.....most all Germans have an opinion.  The older you are....the more supportive of public TV/radio.  The younger you are....the more negative you are over public TV/radio.  One might take a guess that around 75-percent of the under-30 crowd are very negative about the tax, and admit they almost never use public TV or public radio.

So to the story of the day.....two sub-networks from the public TV business....SR and SWR are in the news.

SR supports only Saarbrucken and is a small-time player in the state-by-state business.

SWR supports the states of Rhineland Pfalz and Baden-Wurttemberg....which takes up a fair amount of territory.

Both handle TV alone.

The head guy for SWR (Gniffke) stood up and said that SWR could possibly examine a reorganization effort where the two might get cooperation (he didn't really detail much, other than it'd save money).

Gniffke didn't really discuss this ahead of time with the SR chief (Kleist), and this suggestion didn't really go over well.

The word 'sovereignty' got uttered a fair amount.

A potential merger coming out of this?  The SR folks don't appear to be friendly to this, and think their empire would be swallowed up.  

So you'd naturally ask....what exactly do the regional public TV folks produce?  It's mostly three central things: (1) nightly regional news, (2) documentary pieces on tourism or events within the districts, and (3) public forums to discuss regional issues.  

If you drag up the nightly news piece....it typically runs at 7:30 PM for 30 minutes, and there's probably 15 minutes of worthwhile news....with the rest centered on some dog-and-pony piece, or some story about three kids who found a bag of Roman coins.  

How many people watch their regional news?  That's a virtual unknown answer.  I'd generally tell you that if you wanted real local news in Germany, you'd be better off reading it off your local newspaper.  

Could the regional networks be better organized and lower their budget requirements?  No doubt....but you'd have to push most of them  into this type of thinking.

My guess is that the SWR chief will get some serious criticism by the ARD/ZDF empire managers, and be told to lessen the chat on this idea of his.