Politicians' demands on public broadcasters are becoming clearer.

Last week, the federal states - at the urging of the Union - gave ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio an ultimatum and called for noticeable reforms and savings.

On Monday, the Presidium of the FDP adopted a policy paper on media policy, the content of which had already been suggested by Federal Minister of Economics Christian Lindner in the past few days.

Now it's getting concrete: suspend the increase in broadcasting fees, salary caps for top earners, leaner administration, concentration on information and education, no further expansion on the Internet with press-like offers.

Citizens feel patronized

Michael Hanfeld

responsible editor for feuilleton online and "media".

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These are the core demands of the Liberals.

"Around 8.4 billion euros in contributions is a world record," says the twelve-strong FDP executive committee and warns: "No director should earn more than the Federal Chancellor." The broadcasters should be controlled by "external, independent third parties".

Uniform compliance rules are required.

The Saarländischer Rundfunk and the Südwestrundfunk should - as an example - hold talks about close cooperation between their administrations.

According to the FDP, public service broadcasting is in a crisis of confidence, its social acceptance is falling, many citizens do not see themselves represented or feel patronized.

The FDP thus summarizes more or less all points of the political debate about crisis-ridden public broadcasting, which Union politicians or the left-wing politician and Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow recently called for.

The SPD and the Greens are conspicuously reticent and leave it at general reform warnings.

An expensive consultant at RBB

The latest news about Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, Bayerischer Rundfunk and Norddeutscher Rundfunk show that there are plenty of starting points.

In the case of RBB, the online publication "Business Insider" once again detailed how the questionable award of consultancy contracts in connection with the planned digital media company, the planned costs of which have more than tripled from 60 to 188 million euros, is said to have gone.

The focus is on the real estate consultant Martin Lepper, who came into play at RBB through the mediation of the former chairman of the board of directors, Wolf-Dieter Wolf.

Although Lepper asked for the highest price when a contract was advertised, everything was done to let him get a chance anyway.

The tender was stopped, it was considered

To fudge Lepper's hourly bills or to give him a contract with the subsidiary RBB Media, which is officially for a different consulting service, but should in fact relate to the Digital Media House project.

Lepper should have come to RBB money as a subcontractor for a law firm.

The law firm appears in the books with a high fee of 890,000 euros, Lepper's salaries would have amounted to 350,000 euros.