If you cornered a hundred Germans under the age of forty, and asked their humble opinion of state-run TV.....away from journalists, politicians, and intellectuals.....the vast majority would say that they are frustrated and disheartened over state-run TV. They don't like the monthly fee.....they rarely watch it....and its design is something more for the intellectual crowd than the typical average German.
Getting some political attention on modifying or changing state-run TV? Almost impossible. Even the discussion of a different format for the board of governors....is a heavily argued point because no one wants a board that demands changes.
I noted in regional news today....the FDP party out of Bavaria came up with this nifty idea.
They want a state referendum on the exit of BR (their state-run junior network) off the national deal. What they are suggesting is a ballot item, where Bavarians would determine where BR would go and how it would change.
The comments from FDP? "Bloated" and "inefficient" were noted.
What is suggested here is a BR network that controlled from within Bavaria itself. They'd probably have to appoint another board, but it'd be Bavarian members on the board, and it'd probably have capability to kick things around, modify past practices, and eliminating waste. One of the key things they mentioned....was the overpriced prices that the national state-run networks pay for sports.
Most everyone will mention this whenever word comes out about what ARD or ZDF paid for the Olympics, World Cup, or Grand Prix racing.
The odds of a ballot initiative being done? Normally, FDP wouldn't get a lot of attention but I think on this issue.....more than half the public would support this, and they'd at least allow the public to vote on this. Naturally.....ARD/ZDF and the national board would be very dismayed about allowing a vote to occur.
What if another region looked at their regional network, and applied a vote there? This would trigger a catastrophic trend, and possibly wreck what took decades to build.....a twenty-odd network operation that more than half of the nation rarely if ever.....watches.
An independent BR? Well, I'd take a guess that they'd dump a fair amount of high-cost to broadcast sports. They'd show up for regional bike races to do free-airing of those. Soccer games from secondary cities would be covered more often. Marathon races throughout Bavaria would be covered more often.
More Bavarian-developed TV shows? My guess is that the network would find dozens of people with ideas and the cost factor wouldn't be a big deal.
Yeah, there would be more commercials, and some of the heavy-weight high-cost managers would probably be told to retire.....with pay scales going down a notch.
Course, this is all a 'iffy' thing.....if the state government would all this to a ballot measure.
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