Digital Funds Called To Halt

Michael Hedges July 19, 2009 Follow on Twitter

Asking for money these days is a challenge. Particularly difficult is asking for tax money. Some projects once deemed necessary face abandonment. “Success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan.”

In Germany the Kommission zur Ermittlung des Finanzbedarfs der Rundfunkanstalten – commonly known as the KEF – is charged with identifying the financial needs of public broadcasters then appropriating money from the license fee tax to fill those needs. Last week (July 15) the KEF “unanimously” rejected further funding of digital radio using the DAB standard. Public broadcasters had sought €30 million. An additional €12 million had been requested to support private sector broadcasters in digital migration.

The KEF had asked, in early 2008, public and private sector broadcasters for a detailed plan for restarting digital radio on the DAB+ platform. The plan, when it finally materialized, was a “failure,” said the KEF statement. “The economics of this project has not been demonstrated.”

One of the criteria set by KEF for approving the funding was agreement between public and private sector broadcasters. Any semblance of agreement between the two competing parties ended in late June when private sector broadcasters gave up on DAB+, citing high costs and no possibility of financial return. The KEF challenged “inadequate statements about future program offerings, which should be exclusively via digital radio.” The agency was also unimpressed with “vague predictions about setting a possible shutdown of FM.”

The KEF, however, was clear in its willingness to accept new initiatives in the digital radio realm.  “The project funding provided for the digital future of radio is not crossed off, but is available for new initiatives,” said the KEF statement. With private sector broadcasters less than enthusiastic about initiatives with questionable return and public broadcasters unable to identify a digital Plan B anything proposed faces a very high threshold.

Part of that threshold is political. Tax money has been spent, over €200 million in Germany. “There must be no more time wasted with this project now,” said media spokesperson Thomas Jarzombek of the CDU party in North Rhine-Westphalia to Wolbeck-Münster (July 17). “Instead, all the resources are now directed to the internet.”

“After the exit of private radio stations and the rejection by the KEF, digital radio on DAB+ died,” he added.

Wait a minute, release that money, said Saxony’s Media Minister Johannes Beermann to Sächsische Zeitung (July 18). Saxony had planned to be the first German Länder to make the digital switch. “To back away from the digital world is not possible,” he said.

“A black day for all German radio,” said public radio Deutschlandradio Director Willi Steul, to Blick (July 17).

It has been a black month or two for digital radio advocates, particularly those partial to the DAB family of standards. Within hours of the German private broadcasters association (VPRT) rejecting any forward moves with DAB, the Swiss private broadcasters association (VSP) followed suit. A UK government report – Digital Britain – urging forward a switch to DAB from FM received a tepid response from commercial broadcasters and the BBC, both saying, essentially, “show us the money.”

Public broadcasters have the most to lose if, in fact, digital radio on the DAB family of standards falls flat. The prognosis in Germany doesn’t look good though political winds might shift. What doesn’t shift is the need to face forward. Public broadcasters have invested heavily in DAB and DAB+. Private sector broadcasters have always been wary and that caution has only grown.