On October 29th, the Broadcasting Council of Hessischer Rundfunk will elect a new director.
The “Findungskommission” has now proposed to the broadcasting councils who should succeed Manfred Krupp, who will retire at the end of February next year.
She names two candidates: Stephanie Weber, since January operations director of HR, and Florian Hager, deputy ARD program director and "channel manager" of the ARD media library.
Michael Hanfeld
responsible editor for features online and "media".
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The search committee, which was formed in April and to which the chairmen of the broadcasting and administrative boards and chairmen of the board committees belong, came up with the two candidates after, as it is said, “extensive advice and intensive discussions”.
According to reports, there were initially half a dozen candidates in the shortlist, which is now a very narrow one for the time being.
The fact that the selection committee does not propose the deputy HR director and program director Gabriele Holzner is a clear sign.
She had let it be known in public that she dared to do the job.
This obviously does not apply to the members of the search committee.
However, they did not come up with the idea of sending an independent, highly respected candidate for quality productions like the Frankfurt filmmaker Ina Knobloch into the race. The doctor of biology, who was awarded the Hessian Film Prize for her film "The Oppenheimer Files" and landed on the bestseller list (written together with the actor Hannes Jaenicke), counted, as can be heard, to the circle of the invited.
External impulses could not harm Hessischer Rundfunk. The medium-sized ARD broadcaster closed the 2020 financial year with a deficit of around ninety million euros, the year before with a minus of almost one hundred million, and is characterized above all by the fact that it does not attract any further attention. As a rule, productions remain in-house. The incumbent HR director Manfred Krupp vehemently advocates the big innovation push and the becoming a platform of the ARD - also in a contribution to the future debate of the public service broadcasting in this newspaper. But in the end it's always about the - allegedly - missing money. The HR budget is just under six hundred million euros per year.
It has not yet been agreed that only Stephanie Weber and Florian Hager will compete for the director's office.
The members of the Broadcasting Council can propose further applicants, the submissions must be considered.
The general manager of HR is elected by a simple majority for a discreetly indefinite term of office “from five to nine years” in accordance with Section 16 of the HR Act.
So the station is about to set a real course.