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ARD and ZDF: "Reaching citizens where they are (medially)"
Photo: Frank Hoermann/SVEN SIMON / Sven Simon / IMAGO
The federal states want to sharpen the mandate of public service broadcasting in Germany and have agreed on changes in the state treaty.
This was announced by the Rhineland-Palatinate State Chancellery, which is responsible for media policy, on Thursday after the Prime Ministers' Conference in Berlin.
The aim is to make the brand core of public broadcasting with ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio more visible.
Among other things, the federal states want to allow more flexibility in the range of programs - digital streaming offers on the Internet apart from the ongoing program are becoming increasingly important.
The Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer (SPD), explained in the statement: "It's about enabling offers to reach the citizens where they are (medially) and with the formats they need."
Entertainment remains the program
An important point in the debates leading up to the event was the question of what status entertainment should have in the stations' programming in the future.
There is a need for a broad understanding of what constitutes the core of the brand today, the statement continued.
Of course, this also includes culture, education, information, and entertainment is also part of it »if this corresponds to a public service profile«.
With the agreement of the heads of government, a draft with the changes in the state treaty can now be drawn up and the state parliaments are involved.
Media policy in Germany is a matter for the federal states.
These define the framework of public service broadcasting.
It's not about specific program content.
That is in the hands of the broadcasters themselves - with a view to the constitutionally protected freedom of the press.
The mandate describes what broadcasters should do and offer to the general public and what the tasks of bodies in the broadcasters are.
The current reform is also not about the broadcasting fee of EUR 18.36 per month that households pay to finance public broadcasting.
The subject of financing is to become the focus of a further reform step later.
ime/dpa