The broadcasting commission of the federal states is today dealing with proposed changes that have resulted from the online hearing on the media change treaty.

In October last year, the Prime Ministers' Conference approved a draft for the structural and contractual reform of public service broadcasting, some points of which remain controversial.

Associations and interested citizens could make suggestions until mid-January.

The Broadcasting Commission received around 2,700 submissions.

What is public entertainment?

According to Nathanael Liminski, State Secretary and Head of the State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, there are three main areas in focus.

It is about strengthening the bodies of the broadcasters in supervising the fulfillment of the mandate and the mandate itself. The profile of the entertainment is controversial here, according to Liminski.

From the point of view of many countries, "entertainment" in public service broadcasting should be designed differently and have a different function than in private broadcasters.

The third focus touches on the core of the amendment - making the program assignment more flexible.

Here, the broadcasters should be given more freedom in the choice of playout channels, but also take on more responsibility.

It's about

For the acceptance of public service broadcasting, however, one of the decisive factors is how the system can be financed in a comprehensible manner.

The compulsory contribution must remain affordable for the citizens, which contributes significantly to its legitimacy.

The brand "public service broadcasting" must include a clear profile, offers that are close to the citizen and attractive regional content.

With a view to the core of the reform, only a few programs to be commissioned directly, Liminski demands that the flexibilization should not result in immeasurable costs.

New online content must be linked to reducing linear offers.

"In this respect, I consider the findings of the Commission to determine the financial requirement KEF to be correct, that profitability and economy must be verifiable," says the Head of the State Chancellery.

When asked about the planned ARD news channel, Liminski demands that the public broadcasters fulfill their information mandate in all programs: "A news channel must not be a fig leaf for meeting their information obligations at any point - even though they no longer attract the majority of viewers achieve.” Liminski considers the way in which the proposal was placed by ARD to be “unfortunate”.

The similarity with ZDF, for example in Phoenix, is unnecessarily jeopardized with such an idea.

In contrast, both the federal states and the public demanded that cooperation be expanded: “To endanger the necessary strengthening of cooperation with this unilateral and uncoordinated initiative,

is open-heart surgery on public broadcasting.

This advance also makes efforts to ensure fair cooperation with newspaper publishers and other private providers more difficult.”

Liminski is also in favor of a reform of the determination of contributions in accordance with the proposals of the Federal Constitutional Court.

The current procedure is no longer accepted by society and by the state parliaments, as was the case in the past.

Requiring the politically diverse state parliaments to make a decision that is predetermined as a result only meets democratic expectations to a very limited extent.