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ZDF-Identant Thomas Bellut: Sender announces austerity measures
Photo: Fredrik von Erichsen / picture alliance / dpa
The lack of increase in the radio license also leaves its mark on ZDF: The broadcaster announced on Monday that there could be cuts in the program in the future.
Actually, the license fees should have increased by 86 cents on January 1, 2021 - at least that is what the majority of the state governments had planned.
But Saxony-Anhalt's refusal stopped the project.
A decision by the Federal Constitutional Court is now pending.
Until then, however, the public broadcasters will lack the planned higher revenues.
For ZDF this means a budget gap of around 150 million euros.
As the broadcaster announced on Monday, Director Dr.
Thomas Bellut told the Board of Directors how to deal with the reduced income.
In contrast to Deutschlandradio, which announced in mid-January that it would be withdrawing from the current collective bargaining agreement for cost reasons, ZDF is initially not planning to cut staff.
The program should not have to accept any losses for the time being.
Instead, "reserves, savings and the postponement of investments" should save the broadcaster through the current year.
A long absence would have "serious consequences"
"Especially in the Corona crisis, I consider it my duty to continue to support the medium-sized German producer landscape and creative people and not to restrict the program for as long as possible," said Artistic Director Bellut.
"It is also clear, however, that a prolonged absence of the premium increase would have serious consequences."
If the radio license fee is not increased for a long time, savings will have to be made on the program from 2022.
And drastically: "Around 75 percent" of the missing money would have to be covered by cuts in the content, says the message.
"This would mainly affect the fictional commissioned production with significant effects on the situation of the production economy and creative professionals," said those responsible and pointed out that this would have an impact on the quality of the program and the competitiveness of the station.
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