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RBB director Patricia Schlesinger
Photo: Paul Zinken / picture alliance / dpa
The director of the Berlin-Brandenburg broadcasting company (RBB), Patricia Schlesinger, will take over the chairmanship of the ARD next year.
The general meeting of the ARD broadcasters decided on the change on Wednesday, as the ARD announced.
The 60-year-old follows WDR director Tom Buhrow.
The chair directs the business of the working group.
As a rule, every two years the state broadcasters pass on the most important office.
Officially, it is said that the nine state broadcasters of the ARD take turns regularly.
However, for the first time in the history of the broadcasting network, the RBB is taking over the chairmanship.
Schlesinger will have the task of harmonizing the various well-equipped houses and interests in the ARD network.
At ZDF it works differently, there is no network of broadcasters, but a single company.
That makes some decision-making processes easier.
Schlesinger benefits from the fact that she does not inherit the dispute over the increase in the radio license from predecessor Buhrow.
But other tasks await: Your term of office will fall during the major reform phases of public service broadcasting.
Lots of construction sites, but "the full support of the community"
The federal states, which largely have the say in media policy, have been working on renewing the mandate and structure of the public broadcasters of ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio for a long time.
A central aspect: digitization.
Will the countries give broadcasters more freedom to decide independently which channels a program will be broadcast through, so that a radio program could also migrate to the digital world, to where the young people are?
Because on this question too, there are conflicts waiting for Schlesinger, for example with the press publishers, who are also investing in digital products.
In any case, Buhrow, who will move from chairman to deputy chairman from 2022, congratulated Schlesinger on the election and assured her that she had "the full support of the community" in her new role.
sak / dpa
