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Scene from the ARD production "Asbest": the ARD media library hit
Photo: Pantaleon Films / ARD
ARD program director Christine Strobl brought good news.
The small gangster series »Asbest«, co-developed and directed by the German-Lebanese »4 Blocks« star Kida Khodr Ramadan, is said to have been accessed almost seven million times in the media library.
It is about Lebanese and Albanian clans, whose young members are fighting for power in the neighborhood in Berlin, and is therefore what one imagines as diverse, young and relevant in the network of broadcasters, which is considered difficult to reform.
Strobl enthuses: "We have succeeded in breaking into a new group."
The success of the "Asbestos" project, which was initiated exclusively for streaming evaluation, may be partly responsible for the fact that the ARD management decided to shift 200 million euros from the old linear to the new digital program for production purposes.
The watchword is: Everything (well, almost everything) on streaming!
According to ARD frontwoman Strobl, even the regional content of the third programs, which are generally not so young and diverse, are now to be “transferred to the digital world”.
»There will be cuts at locations«
After a year of multiple scandals, crises of meaning and excesses of self-mutilation, the ARD has imposed a reform agenda in which the focus on the media center complex is the core element.
At the beginning of the year, SWR director Kai Gniffke took over the office of ARD chairman from WDR director Tom Buhrow. Now the directors came together under Gniffke's direction for a meeting in Hanover to discuss the renewal measures that politicians have now called for.
At a press conference on Thursday, however, they presented reform approaches that were not so new after all.
Gniffke once again repeated his idea of creating "journalistic competence centers," which he had already launched in a SPIEGEL interview at the end of last year.
They want to bundle the expertise of the various ARD stations in order to achieve the greatest possible depth of research.
He also reiterated that these mergers also result in layoffs.
"There will be cuts at locations," says Gniffke.
»It will take courage to live this reform agenda.«
Despite these cuts, the ARD offices in rural and remote regions are apparently to be strengthened.
NDR director Joachim Knuth explained that the aim was to achieve a greater "diversity of perspectives".
“We need to involve colleagues in our regional offices much more in contributing opinions,” said Knuth.
In addition, the news channel Tagesschau 24 should extend the current reporting to 17 hours.
One is then, according to Knuth, »capable of live performances from early in the morning until late at night«.
With this, those responsible for ARD also reacted to the reporting fiasco during the storm disaster in the Ahr Valley in 2021, when broadcasting from the site was very late.
How much "daily news" is on TikTok?
But Knuth also focused on the digital when presenting the information plans.
He praised the "Tagesschau" as the "most successful news format on Insta" and announced a further "spread" in current social media channels.
How much "daily news" is on TikTok?
Meanwhile, colleague Gniffke was celebrating: “ARD is the European champion on YouTube.
The ARD puts in more content than any other provider.«
"Social media spreads", "networking platform", "the most relevant streaming provider in the country": At the press conference, the ARD management team literally rolled over in promises of digital salvation - a performance that is probably also intended to calm politicians.
Because only three weeks ago, the influential broadcasting commission of the federal states had demanded that the public broadcasters should join forces in the digital world to form a large platform on which the audience can also communicate with each other and with the operators.
That was an instruction that was explicitly addressed to ARD and ZDF together – but which ARD now also explicitly ignored at the press conference.
Because the cooperation between the two broadcasting networks demanded by the federal states had no place in the streaming frenzy in Hanover.
On the contrary: Gniffke emphasized that the aim was to maintain the "journalistic competition" between ARD and ZDF, but he did not want to speak of a common communication platform, as demanded by politicians.
Gniffke is probably on the wavelength with ZDF director Norbert Himmler, who ostentatiously announced in a recent interview that he would examine cooperation models with non-German public broadcasters.
Everyone reforms for themselves?
It is doubtful that this is the ailing public broadcaster's best survival strategy.
