As of: February 24, 2024, 6:50 a.m
By: Maximilian Hertel
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The states are discussing whether consumers will have to pay more for public broadcasting from 2025.
Meanwhile, experts have made initial recommendations.
Bremen - The independent experts from the Commission for Determining the Financial Requirements of Broadcasters (KEF) will give their assessment on Friday (February 23) of how high the broadcasting fee could be from 2025.
The final decision still rests with the federal states, which are still discussing it.
A first draft for adjusting the broadcasting fees is already available.
Federal states are discussing a possible increase in the broadcasting fee
The current period for the broadcasting fee runs until the end of 2024. However, the KEF experts have already suggested an increase in the fee in a first draft.
Most recently, in August 2021, the broadcasting fee was increased from 17.50 euros per month to the current amount of 18.36 euros through a state treaty.
However, the increase was not decided by the states as usual, but rather by a decision of the Federal Constitutional Court.
Since the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt did not agree to the increase at the time, ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio successfully filed a constitutional complaint, as explained on the website Rundfunkteil.de.
Now the states have to decide again on the amount of the contribution for 2025.
Adjustment of the broadcasting fee – experts recommend an increase of 58 cents from 2025
The federal states commission the public broadcaster and thus determine which services it should provide to the population or which programs it should offer.
In order to be able to fulfill these tasks, the broadcasters must have sufficient financial resources.
The financial resources are based on the broadcasting mission.
The KEF regularly reviews the financial plans of ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio and pays attention to profitability.
If the federal states decide to increase the contribution, this must closely follow the recommendations of the KEF experts.
The KEF expert commission plans to increase the broadcasting fee for 2025 by 58 cents.
© IMAGO / Herrmann Agency Photography
The new recommendation for 2025 will be officially announced no later than the afternoon of February 23rd, when the experts present their report to the federal states in Berlin.
In a preliminary draft, the experts propose a contribution of 18.94 euros, which corresponds to an increase of 58 cents.
However, it is not yet clear whether the contribution will actually change on January 1, 2025.
If the states do not make a decision this year, the amount will remain unchanged for the time being.
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Broadcasting fee 2022 – This is what consumers paid to public broadcasting
According to the 2022 annual report from ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio contribution service, the total income from the monthly broadcasting fee of 18.36 euros was around 8.6 billion euros.
Of approximately 46 million contribution accounts, approximately 3.2 million were in default or subject to enforcement action.
In addition, there were expenses of 178 million euros for the contribution service, which led to a total loss in 2022 of around 1.5 billion euros.
These are the key figures from 2022:
Amount of monthly Contribution fees |
€18.36 |
|---|---|
Number of contribution accounts |
45,957,188 |
administrative expenses |
€178,113,229.05 |
Number of contribution accounts in default / enforcement |
3,224,280 |
Number of unique Reminders/executions |
19,516,665 |
Amount of total income |
€8,567,818,396.35 |
Nevertheless, revenue in 2022 increased by 1.73 percent compared to the previous year.
The main reason for this increase in income was the adjustment of the broadcasting fee from €17.50 to €18.36 per month on August 1, 2021, as stated in the annual report.
If the KEF experts' draft prevails and the federal states agree to it, the public broadcasters and the state media authorities could expect gross revenue of around 10.5 billion euros.
(
mh/dpa
)
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