Sky is planning a large documentary and fiction project on Wirecard

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It is a financial scandal that will keep the country busy for years.

The collapse of the Aschheim-based company Wirecard, which was initially traded as a fintech prodigy and then turned out to be a fake financial service lied together with a high level of criminal energy, left 3.2 billion euros in debt.

How much blame supervisory authorities and ministries bear for the fiasco is now to be clarified at the request of the opposition by an investigative committee.

In parallel to the parliamentary review, the pay-TV provider Sky is planning a multi-element project.

The shooting of an elaborate documentary on the Wirecard case should begin in the next few weeks.

The ninety-minute film is produced in cooperation with Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg;

after the Sky evaluation he should be seen on ARD.

It is not the first time Sky has worked with a public service partner;

The pay station had previously worked with various ARD broadcasters on the major series project "Babylon Berlin" - the first 16 episodes cost around 40 million euros.

In addition, Sky is developing a mini-series for the Aufschneider company Wirecard, which is said to have even planned to take over Deutsche Bank in 2019.

For example, six 45-minute parts that could be evaluated internationally are conceivable.

The shooting for it is planned for the next year.

In Germany, the series should only be seen on Sky - a cooperation with a public law partner is excluded by the broadcaster.

"Greed, betrayal and loss of values"

The driving force behind the entire project is the producer Gabriela Sperl.

In both the documentary and the fiction format, she wants, in her own words, not only to trace "greed, betrayal and loss of values", but also to tell a "story of the upright" who fought for clarification against all odds.

Sperl had previously implemented some of the most advanced multi-part television programs on difficult historical and political subjects for ARD and ZDF.

For example, five years ago she produced the three-part series "NSU - Mitten in Deutschland", which won the Grimme Prize, and which dealt with the victims and perpetrators of the neo-Nazi series of murders.

The 270-minute undertaking was an example of how filmmakers can approach a topic that is still in full swing.

Public television work, so to speak.

It is therefore of great importance that Sperl is now implementing the greater part of the "Wirecard" project with the pay station of an international media conglomerate.

It shows how pay-TV broadcasters and streaming platforms of international media groups are penetrating public-law territory with a lot of money.

In the cutthroat competition that Netflix, Amazon, Disney and all the others are currently engaging in, capital is not only being pumped into series and feature films, but increasingly also into high-quality reports and information programs.

The Wirecard issue is also being addressed by TVnow, RTL's streaming service.

There the fraud scandal is to be retold in the form of a ninety-minute docudrama, but shooting will not start until next year.

A public service provider also acts as the director for the private broadcaster's project: Raymond Ley perfected the documentary fiction format for ARD and ZDF, most recently in "Gier eats heart" how the Lehman bankruptcy in 2008 affected German small savers affected.

And Netflix will soon be poaching on public-law territory: On September 25, the streaming service will make its four-part documentary series "Rohwedder - Unity and Murder and Freedom" available for download.

The research into the murder of the head of the Treuhand-Anstalt can then be seen almost worldwide.

Further documentaries from Germany are being planned at Netflix.

Let's see how ARD and ZDF react to the massive information offensive of the streaming competition.

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