German public service broadcasting

2.5.3 German public service broadcasting

The German public service broadcasting system is now based on the former West German model, and we will consider this in some detail in order to compare to PSB in the United Kingdom. The system would appear to offer greater democratic control of broadcasters and to break down the dominance of a paternalistic system – a frequent criticism of PSB in the United Kingdom, particularly the BBC.

Germany had the earliest mixed economy in Europe – a corporate society from the late nineteenth century. The individual was part of that corporation, and related to the state (following the philosophy of Hegel).

Managing in the Media

This affected broadcasting; during the Nazi period (1933–1945) broad- casting and film were controlled by the state, and used by the party.

In the post-war years, the Allies were determined to prevent the re- emergence of a unified state. Germany was not only partitioned, but in West Germany a Federal Republic was established. Eleven L¨ander were established, and power was devolved to each of these regions under a new constitution, Basic Law. Cultural policy and power were also deliberately devolved to the L¨ander in order to prevent the reforming of a nationalist culture.

Article 5 of Basic Law provides for the freedom of expression, but also limits it. Expression has to comply with both the criminal law and the constitution; it must not threaten the constitution, for example by arguing for the abolition of federalism.

Article 15 places emphasis on the public ownership of broadcasting, seen as the only feasible option post-war. It provided a continuity of public ownership and public control.

The West German broadcasting system was split into nine stations, one station per L¨ander, apart from the two smallest ones. This is clearly a different approach from the UK, although there are some parallels with the regional division of the ITV network (ITV stations are required to represent their region as well as forming part of a national network). Each station has

a similar organisational structure, and is responsible to its local region. In the late 1950s, there was pressure for a commercial broadcasting system to

be established. The conservative Federal government (the Bund) was interested in a national network to compete with regional broadcasting, because of concerns over regional bias and local interpretation (the stations were thought to be broadly left of centre).The Bund tried to set up a national service, but the L¨ander were able to take them to constitutional court and win because of Articles 5 and 15 of the constitution. This event highlights the role of a written constitution and the function of broadcasting stated within it. The court also ruled that all types of opinion should be broadcast; balance and impartiality would be achieved over a year’s schedule and not within a single programme. Thus, the court recognised that broadcasting would be important in shaping public opinion and could take up an adversarial role in politics. Programmes could have a certain tendency or bias, which was unacceptable in the UK until the Broadcasting Act (1990).

However, the L¨ander recognised the need to accommodate the Bund’s demands and they established a second channel, ZDF, which was controlled regionally but broadcast nationally. This was more conservative.

British public service broadcasting

Funding for broadcasting is through the licence fee and advertising. By the late 1970s/early 1980s, advertising made up 30 per cent of PSB income. The broadcasting system is not so threatened by American programming because of the language difference and quotas. The licence fee is on a sliding scale, not a fixed fee as in UK; income is distributed between L¨ander. Advertising was initially tightly controlled, with a maximum of 20 minutes per day and no advertising on Sundays. As with other European countries, the public service system was threatened by the emergence of cable and satellite in the late 1970s/early 1980s.

Structure of policy management

The German broadcasting system is often said to have pluralism all the way though it, placed there by the Allies. How is this achieved?

The regulatory framework for each station required it to have representa- tives from the local community, and to provide access for the local community. There was freedom from commercial and central state pressures, and ideally this would provide the autonomy and freedom to experiment. For example, the WDR’s Arbeiterfilm (workers’ films) in the 1970s were naturalistic dramas from a broad left perspective. They had some common ground with Garnett and Loach’s early work for the BBC but were more overtly political. However, despite achieving relatively high ratings, the Arbeiterfilm were cancelled. It is claimed that powerful forces were mobilised to oppose them, principally the business sector and the right, and that the broadcaster, WDR, caved in. This illustrates an important gap between theory, policy indeed, and practice, which is an important consideration for debates about reforming or enforcing PSB policy.

Within each station, the regulation was carried out by:

1 The Broadcasting Council, which was elected by members of the state

assembly, for a 5-year term. The political spectrum of the L¨ander would be represented, because Germany has proportional representation in its electoral system (for WDR, the Council had 21 members).

2 The Director General (Intendant), who was appointed for a fixed term to carry out policy decisions.

3 The Programme Advisory Council, which was elected from local interest

groups (e.g. church, industry and women’s groups). Not every station had

a Council; in the WDR’s case this consisted of 20 members, 19 of which were elected by the Broadcasting Council. Again, this provided a link between the political spectrum represented by electors and the management of the television station.

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4 The Administrative Council, which was elected by the Broadcasting

Council to achieve a balance between the Social and Christian Democrats and other parties. This group met once a month, and was

the real power base of the system in Porter and Collins view 17 . The

Broadcasting Council appointed the Intendant, who then needed the Administrative Council’s approval for the appointment of programme director, directors of administration, studio directors, legal advisors,

director of transmissions and technical directors 18 . Their approval,

however, was not needed for posts ‘with exclusively artistic duties’. Hence, there was separation made between the management of broadcasting resources and the breadth of content, and decisions about individual programme content. (A comparison could be made with the BBC governors and their remit.)

If programming became too partial over the year, the Administrative Council would step in to ask for balance. Although Broadcasting Councils allowed for

a range of political views, this tended to lead to parties ‘siding’ for political ends with either the Social or Christian democrats, and this in turn led to minority views (such as the Greens) being squeezed out.

The system can be seen as democratic, but allowing for direct political intervention in programming in a way that would be unacceptable in the UK. This type of structure answers some of the criticisms of the lack of accountability of PSB, but it also raises the prospect of broadcasting becoming closely allied to party politics.

Cable and satellite have now made inroads into the PSB system. In 1987, a court accepted that private broadcasting could go ahead as long as balance and representation were maintained. (PSB was identified as functioning to maintain democracy, but private systems only had to maintain ‘a minimum standard of pluralism’ – they were left freer in programming terms.)

In the 1990s, the German television industry was seen to be in crisis, hampered by a high degree of regulation to maintain balance and pluralism (pluralism here including non-federal views, which are uncon- stitutional). There was a potential problem with the EC/EU post-1992, since Germany’s regulation of PSB could be deemed to contravene a European free market and therefore be challenged in the European court as a restrictive practice. The fragmentation of revenue, by both an increase in the number of public stations and the arrival of satellite and cable, has limited programme making, whereas in the 1970s German PSB funded ‘New German Cinema’ (e.g. the films of Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog,

British public service broadcasting

Fassbinder and Margerethe von Trotta). It is now almost squeezed out of film co-production.

West German PSB was considered a model for the ‘social responsibility’ system of PSB. Media reformers in the UK pointed to it because of its role being defined by the constitution and protected by it. It appeared to allow for a real democratic input to PSB, but to some extent a real breadth of programming could not be delivered. In the light of the technological, economic and political changes of the 1980s/1990s, this may need to be re- evaluated.