The new director of Hessischer Rundfunk, Florian Hager, would like to have more data on the users of the ARD media library.

As far as this is concerned, he is a bit jealous of the Netflix streaming service, Hager said in an interview with the German Press Agency.

Michael Hanfeld

responsible editor for feuilleton online and "media".

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He is convinced “that in the platform economy, the focus is no longer just on the content, but also on the references.

And we're talking about data.

Therefore, in the future, the context will be at least as valuable as the content, because without it and without the corresponding data, we cannot build long-term customer relationships.

We're lagging behind Netflix, and I'm a little jealous," said Hager.

He sees user data as being in good hands with a public broadcaster: “The more personalization you want, the more data you have to disclose.

As a provider under public law, I would like to be a little more self-confident: Who, if not us, handles this data properly?

We consciously set the highest standards for ourselves in terms of data protection law.

In an interview with the Evangelical Press Service, Hager said that he was surprised at the press publishers' criticism of the public broadcasters.

The president of the newspaper publishers' association BDZV, Mathias Döpfner, had recently pointed out to the responsible federal states the large text offers from the public service and their - forbidden - press similarity.

The BDZV now wants to call the arbitration board set up three years ago for the first time, which is supposed to take care of disputes about press similarity.

"One can ask oneself why this dispute is flaring up again now, when publishers are increasingly relying on moving images," said the new HR director Hager.

"From a monetary point of view, this shouldn't really be the issue that worries the publishers the most."

Hager took up his post as director of Hessischer Rundfunk on Tuesday.

He succeeds Manfred Krupp, who is retiring.

At the beginning of December last year, Hager was elected director of HR at the second attempt by the station's broadcasting council.

He received eighteen out of 32 votes in the vote, while his opponent, HR operations director Stephanie Weber, received fourteen votes.

At a previous election date, there had been a stalemate between the two candidates in three ballots.

To date, Hager had worked as deputy ARD program director and as "channel manager" of the ARD media library.

Hessischer Rundfunk is in the middle of an important change process and has already made important decisions in recent years, Hager said in an HR statement.

These must now be implemented consistently under more difficult financial circumstances.

Hessischer Rundfunk employs around 1700 permanent and 940 permanent freelancers.

The broadcaster has generated a record minus in recent years.

According to the budget for 2022, the “expenses” of the station are 612 million euros, the “income” is 531 million.

Makes a minus of 81 million euros.

According to the annual report, HR expected income of 510.7 million and expenses of 623.2 million euros in 2021, making a record minus of 112.5 million.

In 2020 HR closed with a penalty of 90.3 million euros, in 2019 it was 99,