Mistakes Uncomfortable For Broadcaster, PR To The Rescue

Michael Hedges January 30, 2023 Follow on Twitter

Traditional broadcasters and publishers can feel their financial footing falling away. Coronavirus lockdowns stripped away large portions of their commercial advertising revenue streams. New digital platforms enticed listeners, viewers and readers with specialized services - often rather wild - offered through subscriptions and locked by paywalls. Inflation, recession and fears thereof have increased tensions both on the supply side - creators and producers - and the demand side - consumers. Unsurprisingly, regulators and politicians have waded in.

Roughly 3,000 employees of German regional public broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenberg (RBB) walked off the job Friday. Unions Verdi (trades) and DJV (editorial) authorized the industrial action after an impasse with management over salaries. Virtually all broadcasting came to a halt. Strikers gathered at the RBB television center in Berlin. “In the speeches, it became clear that the anger of employees goes far beyond the current collective bargaining,” noted Tagesspiegel (January 27).

Acting general director Katrin Vernau has “no negotiating mandate,” said her office. She has led management of the broadcaster since general director Patricia Schlesinger and former board chairperson Wolf-Dieter Wolf were excused after revelations of egregious mismanagement, including nepotism, surfaced last August. Permanent successors will be elected later this year.

Anguish for the directors last week included revelations that law firms examining the financial mismanagement have been paid more than €1 million. A date for the lawyer’s final report has not been set. Later in February the board will be required to illuminate the €40 million shortfall in the RBB budget. Workers and unions are very concerned.

RBB produces eight radio channels and several programs for public television network ARD, including contributions to Das Erste as well as international culture channel Arte and German-language channel 3sat. It has about 3,500 employees, roughly one-third being freelance. RBB is principally financed through the German household broadcasting fee (Rundfunkbeitrag), €220 annually, and limited radio and TV advertising. Legal supervision is rotated bi-annually between the state (Lander) of Berlin and state of Brandenburg.

The nine regional broadcasters all operate similarly, not identically, in the 16 German states. For example, RBB allows employee bonuses, the others do not. They support 21 individual television channels and 83 radio channels. All participate in national TV network ARD and share in its rotating chairmanship. The three national radio channels of Deutschland radio are produced separately. Some German politicians continue rattling about reducing the output of public broadcasters.

Without surprise, everything happening within German public broadcasting is now making headlines. Newly installed ARD chairman Kai Gniffke, concurrently SWR (Südwestrundfunk) director general, came to the job “earlier than planned” after the resignation of Frau Schlesinger. Hired to advise SWR was well-connected PR agency FischerAppelt due to its “profound knowledge of the structure and role of public service broadcasting in society and the availability of resources,” noted Süddeutsche Zeitung (January 27). In an interview with Der Spiegel (December 16), jointly with WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) director general Tom Buhrow, Herr Gniffke offered that those affected by the ARD reform would "howl and squeak.”

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