German Radio Turns 100 | Hacker News Reader

German Radio Turns 100

dw.com

45 pointssamizdis59 comments

Some years ago, having not spoken any German since high school, I wanted a little refresher before starting a project with some German co-workers. I figured DW would offer some standard texts I could use to get started, and was pleasantly surprised to find whole courses available.

One in particular, based around the plight of a character called Nico, was actually interesting in its own right¹. Searching for it I see they offer even more now; DW truly does feel like an excellent resource to be proud of for its outreach alone.

¹ https://m.dw.com/en/dws-german-language-courses-nicos-weg-is...

Fun fact: German public media have the highest annual budget in the Solar System, most likely in the entire Milky Way. Just recently they proposed to increase even further the monthly broadcasting fee. For any foreginer in Germany unfamiliar with the system the bullish letters from brodcasting debt collection are a true slap in the face.

What is the fee now?

~18€/month per household, independent of number the members of the household or how many devices they have [0].

It's a controversial issue sometimes but I like the quality of the public broadcasting that this enables. Link [1] has a list of broadcasters, both TV and radio.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beitragsservice_von_ARD,_ZDF_u...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_broadcasting#Germany

It looks as if some of the money goes toward Arte, as well. From what I've seen of the content, that seems like a pretty good use of the funds...

"Arte has ghettoized culture on a channel that nobody watches (...) it gives other state channels an excuse to avoid broadcasting these types of shows altogether" - Dominique Wolton, Research Director of France's National Center for Research (2010)

The statement equally holds true for German public broadcasting, which over the decades seems to have shifted focus on copying private broadcasters segments.

It looks as if some of the money goes toward Arte, as well.

Arte is payed for by France and Germany directly. No money of OP's fee goes to Arte

It's so terrible that you needed a quote by a research director to really nail it home, eh? If true it seems pretty unfortunate.

The fee also pays for FUNK, which in turn funds a bunch of good channels, like, for example, Kurzgesagt on Youtube (both English, Spanish and German). Which is money well spent. Just like Arte, which has plenty of good content.

(Quoting a research director doesn't make an opinion true)

This is not true. The German portion of the budget is financed in half by ARD and ZDF each out of their Rundfunbeitrags proceeds. the equivalent is the case for the French portion.

The existence hasn't stopped the German broadcasters from showing culture programming on their other channels. They e.g. even own 16 orchestras to provide content.

Well I would argue a part of the controversial issue is that not everybody who is forced to pay likes the quality as much as you do. ;-)

High-quality privately-run television like an HBO, a Netflix or even a hey-day NBC never emerged in German broadcasting. In part because well-funded public broadcasting would immediatly outcompete private broadcasters in verticals that are "acceptable" for a public broadcaster to engage in. Thus the incentive to "go low" in quality for private broadcasters.

Norway also has a well funded public broadcasting that costs more than in Germany.

We still have several good private alternatives.

It's even worse than that, I don't own a TV, I don't watch movies/shows, I don't own a radio, I don't even speak German yet I have to pay 18 euros a month for German content

Right now it's in some kind of limbo state between a tax and racketeering and I don't lik it. If it's a mandatory tax take it from my salary like the dozen other taxes I pay. I don't get monthly letters asking me to pay for my social security or my retirement...

For some reason I never got the letter. 5 years later I don’t appear to be in their system. From what I’ve heard from friends you can also basically ignore it and they won’t pursue you but who knows if you end up with a mark against your name somewhere.

Their budget is approaching 0.5 of NASA budget. The American NASA which by 2030 is planning to put humans on the Moon.

So, like a repeat series?

yes the NASA one will be on the telly as well

I recall the fee, when living there with an ex. That and juggling which dialup internet providers had the best fees at any given time were enlightening.

I had completely forgotten what DSL is and then I moved to Berlin.

it still lacks behind in terms of speed and QoS compared to other EU countries but it’s clearly improved in the last 3-5 years.

They are agressively trying to bump it up every year. Last time to 18.36 EUR monthly [1]. They always demand more money, then overzealously and agressively collect existing fees. In many EU countries 18 EUR monthly pays for 200-800 MBit FTTX with no data cap, anyone living in Germany gets copper DSL and Tatort.

[1] https://www.morgenpost.de/politik/inland/article231206434/Ka...

highest annual budget in the Solar System, most likely in the entire Milky Way

It has some funnny side-effects: If you manage to land a job there, you'll get paid under the same scheme as public servants, which means that e.g. if you're a camera man you earn as much as a doctor at a public clinic as long as you have a university degree.

The fun part comes when public broadcasters produce segments with a political slant towards anti-capitalism or towards poor people voting populist – and you know that each member of the film crew makes more than 90% of German households.

> if you're a camera man you earn as much as a doctor at a public clinic as long as you have a university degree

That is most definitely not true. This is not how the system works. There is a fixed table with different tiers. But not everyone with a university degree is in the same tier. It still very much depends on the job you are working.

This is not true. Public servants are paid according to a different pay scale (TVöD [1]) than doctors at public hospitals (TV-Ärzte [2]). With a university degree, you get at most TVöD E13 (sometimes only E11), which is lower than the lowest pay grade for hospital doctors.

[1] https://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/c/t/rechner/tvoed/bund?id=...

[2] https://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/c/t/rechner/aerzte/kommuna...

If only the Rundfunkanstalten would actually pay according to public servant scale, our mandatory GEZ tax would be half of what it actually is.

The WDR for example has a median pay of 130.000 Euros / year (+ pensions) across their 4.500 employees. That's not only * a lot* more than any public servant gets, it's more than you can earn at top DAX companies.

The GP was wrong in claiming they're being paid under the same scheme as public servants, but they weren't wrong in calling them out for earning insane amounts of money.

Now if only we'd actually get decent stuff in return, instead of 15 different talk shows that all have to be broadcast at the exact same time.

Some of the stuff they produce is absolutely useful and of great quality, but that's maybe 5% of their entire program (across TV and radio) at best. I'd much rather pay for quality content like the BBC puts out, than Tom Buhrow's 400k Euro salary and "journalists" that ignore and fabricate facts just to have a sensationalized story[0] and then don't even face any repercussions for it.

[0] German: https://www.mitteldeutsches-journal.com/2020/02/28/recherche...

And the public broadcasters have their own contracts. Here’s the one for WDR, the biggest ARD unit: https://wdr.verdi.de/++file++5657188a7713b86a6f000258/downlo...

Camera operators are group 5 and make between 3600 and 5100 Euro. (There are higher level position they can achieve up to 1. camera operator, which tops out at 7000€)

Most camera operators work as so-called "fixed freelancers" and are not paid by any salary scheme at all.

The payment scheme (as others have noted) is not the same. In addition, none of the payment schemes gives you a certain salary level just because you hold a university degree. The get to a certain level you have to in addition perform duties designated for that level, which a camera operator is not.

The fee is roughly on the same level as in the UK (210€ vs. £157.50)/household/year. Since there are dozens of regional public broadcasters in Germany, no single one is anywhere near as rich as the BBC though.

CHF 1 per day here. (~EUR 340/household year)

https://www.bakom.admin.ch/bakom/en/homepage/electronic-medi...

That is just false. ARD alone has a budget of 6.3 billion € and is therefore on its own bigger (budgetwise) than the BBC, which has a budget of 5.3 billion €.

ARD is a union of nine independent regional public broadcasters + DW. None of these ten has anywhere near the budget of the BBC.

BBC is a “union” of different broadcasts, too. You can tune into ARD the same way you can tune into BBC. Then you can switch the channel to BBC2 or NDR.

BBC has a more centralized structure, ARD is still the most expensive public broadcaster in the world.

The ARD is unlike the BBC not a single entity but a loose cooperation of independent broadcasters. That was the posters claim and is entirely true. ARD's shared TV channel "Das Erste" clearly show on air which broadcaster was responsible for which segment shown.

I get it, but does it matter for me as a viewer? Judging from your name, I guess that you know the following things, but I will argue the point for other readers:

ARD (the channel) has by far the biggest market share of all the channels in its union. As a viewer, I do not care whether the administration of those individual channels (in Germany called "third channels") is sitting in the same office or not. They are producing the same program.

For exmaple there is a popular crime show (Tatort), which episodes are produced by different members of ARD, so they take place in different parts of Germany. It is still fundamentally the same show, much like crime shows in the US with a city attached to their name.

Anecdotally, the slogan of ARD is "Wir sind eins" (we are one), hinting that they are the first program, but also want to be seen as one program.

What is specific about ARD is, that it's divisions are organized geographically at the top. But then again, BBC also has regional channels. So my argument is: It does not really matter for the viewer. Except when he is paying, then ARD is clearly worse.

Have ARD made any good programmes we should know about?

If you speak German then maybe yes. They do have good documentaries and the "Tatort"series has a cult like following. More importantly I would claim that they are relatively neutral with regards to political topics.

This is a great thing because in places like in Spain the fee is not present, is is paid by taxes, and as a result, the Government controls it.

So instead of serving the nation, radio and TV becomes the servant of local and presidential powers.

This is not fun at all, this is dangerous, as the media is used mainly for propaganda.

In Spain everybody pays TV3 that sponsors secessionism and RTVE that does promote socialism-comunism because those in charge are secessionist or socialist communist.

This year RTVE's budget has increased 25%. For communists propaganda is essential.

> This is not fun at all, this is dangerous, as the media is used mainly for propaganda.

Well, in the United States we have Fox News and OAN. They're entirely commercial and serve a single party's interests. (Or rather, the interests of the management.) These channels are profitable because people want to watch it.

Its not like that is fundamentally different in germany. There is a socialist / green majority in the “journalists”. The only difference I see from your description is that in Germany it is not the media following the politics, but rather the politics following the media. It’s pretty messed up because there is a natural bias of anti market people inclined to join the state-run media where there is no competition. It’s ironical how every second “documentary” quickly diverts into complaining about monopolies and blaming capitalism for everything (even for the pandemic...) when they are part of one of the biggest and purest monopolies themselves... We just demand a simple opt out, is that too much to ask for?

> The only difference I see from your description is that in Germany it is not the media following the politics, but rather the politics following the media.

It works the same as everywhere. The state is reliably broadcasting a constant stream of press releases and other information. If you're a journalist, that's a good source in your day to day work.

GEZ does not change that

Its not like all information is equal. They still (need to) do heavy filtering and emphasize certain aspects. So there is plenty of room to (even unconsciously) implement biases. In the end most of it ends up being biased to handing ever more power to the state, as thats precisely how they are funded. Just follow the money

I don't know why you think that the fee paying somehow prevents that control by the government? In Poland the fee is paid separately and the national television and radio have turned into a right wing propaganda arm of the government, it's an actual joke, if you want to amuse yourself try watching TVP with translation, it's just awful.

And there's definitely an argument that the BBC is at least somewhat partisan, despite being funded from the public and optional fee.

Clearly, independent funding is only a prerequisite, not a guarantee of impartisanship.

The downside of how it's done in Germany or the UK is that the fee isn't proportional to income, like taxes are (or are suppressed to be). And it doesn't have to be a choice between one or the other, a perfectly workable best of both worlds path exists, in Germany even:

There's a concept called "church tax" that is handled, for those who are members in one of the "qualified" confessional church orgs (in this car, "qualification" basically boils down to Napoleonic age precedent but this is orthogonal to the topic at hand) by the tax collection authorities in a proxy role for the church orgs, but which is very clearly outside of government budget scope. Exactly the same setup could be used to collect income-based broadcast contributions without subjecting broadcasters to budgetary government influence.

"The first chapter of German broadcasting ended with the National Socialists, who systematically used radio for their anti-Semitic and militant purposes. After the Nazis seized power in 1933, there were personnel "purges," as the persecution apparatus called it: Political dissidents and Jews were forced out of their positions."

One of my theories of the current political turmoil is that social media is playing the same role as radio did for the Nazis.

Not exactly. In German occupied Poland, Poles and Jews were not allowed to own radio receivers. With social media all sides of the architected conflict are agitated unless the media are blocked at the country level.

I think we've seen enough evidence for that theory that its not longer a theory. Why would so much money be spent on social media if it didn't work? Thats the business model, and people are paying.

It is interesting to compare different extortion-funded broadcasting services, if you know the languages. Hunter Biden's tax issues is a good example. He has obviously done some shenanigans somewhere, I dont care, but wokest radios tell only the poor lad encountered another attack from evil orange man. Finland is the worst, Sweden and Norway little better. DW and BBC do their job reasonably well.

Germany has a remarkable system of public broadcasting that is unequaled in the world. Following World War 2 it was obvious that the centralisation of media was one important factor in the rise of the Nazis and the western allies wanted to ensure that there was no way that the federal government could be anywhere near broadcasting again. Even just legislative control. The private broadcasters are regulated by the states. In fact, the Facebook pages and YouTube channels of the government in particular have come under a fair amount of criticism for having stepped over the line.

This prohibition is anchored in the Basic Law through broadcasting not being specifically listed as a power given to the federal government and as such is under the control of the states. The federal government had planned to launch a television service to compete with that established by the regional public broadcasters. It was shut down by the constitutional court. Incidentally, Australia has almost identical but slightly more restrictive wording. The constitutionality of the ABC has never actually been tested directly in court. One dealt with that question peripherally and that aspect of the decision was met with derision in the Federal Law Review and the arguments, weak then, are completely idiotic these days.

Back to Germany. The reason why it costs this much is because that is the price of a media organisation and system that is inherently federalised, distributed, with checks and balances all along the way, in a way where by its very nature it is meant to hold itself at least accountable enough and to stop the rise of fascism or other extreme ideology.

It has done a remarkable job in that regard, AfD notwithstanding. If the media landscape would be led by Sky News like in Australia, pushing election conspiracies to the top of YouTube and extensively now cited by Trump himself or Fox News in the US or the BBC’s failure on Brexit we would not have seen a cordon sanitaire like we do because the hold the bastards accountable.

The biggest media organisation from entirely different organisations, ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandfunk and they do so not in any way related to the Federal Republic of Germany but as sibling organisations that its constituent states decided to form.

That is a beautiful concept. It was imposed on Germany, it is expensive, but it is an important part of keeping an ombudsman on democracy, public broadcasting that is an entirely seperate pillar to the very existence of the country itself.

It is a price that we need to pay and we shouldn’t mock Germany for maintaining it or to consider it antiquated or complicated.

We should look in the mirror and make some effort to have someone other than Rupert Murdoch stare back at us.

There’s some saying attributed to him: When I call 10 Downing St they listen, when I call Brussels they couldn’t give a shit.

The cost of public broadcasting in Germany is a drop in the bucket versus Brexit alone, just a recent escapade now led by one of The Sun’s former editors.

German Public Broadcasting is only partially about entertainment. It is a publicly owned ombudsman acting in the public interest, while independent of most other power structures, and talking to the public every day. And there’s actually at least three, maybe a dozen ombudsmen depending on how you count. Wonderful.

> it is expensive, but it is an important part of keeping an ombudsman on democracy, public broadcasting that is an entirely seperate pillar to the very existence of the country itself

Exactly. I tend to think of those ~18€/month that I pay as a democracy fee – it's certainly expensive, but it's worth every penny err… cent.

That's of course not to say that we shouldn't keep an eye on how that money is spent and shouldn't think twice about whether increasing their budget (again) is really necessary.

> Exactly. I tend to think of those ~18€/month that I pay as a democracy fee – it's certainly expensive, but it's worth every penny err… cent.

I never watch/listen to any German public broadcasting channel on television/radio and am still forced to pay nonetheless -- because I could theoretically use them. That's outrageous, to be frank. Honestly, having every household pay the fee while pretending it is not a tax is nothing but a vile gaslighting campaign. I make a habit of paying it 3 months late in order to create as much additional work and cost for them as possible, so far without any legal ramifications.

As I said, I think of those ~18€/month that I pay as a democracy fee. Meaning that no matter whether I peruse public media[0], I still see a significant benefit for our society as a whole and, by implication, for me. Both politicians and the average Joe end up making better decisions because of public media and these ultimately also benefit me.

[0]: My own usage varies quite a bit – during the first lockdown it was several times a day; now I'm back to using them every other week. So I definitely see where you're coming from. Nevertheless I still arrive at a conclusion different from yours.

> while pretending it is not a tax

Legally, it is not. But in practice it certainly is, I agree. Would you be happier if it were also officially called a tax? For me it doesn't really make a difference.

"A century ago, the age of radio began in Germany. Cultural broadcasts made radio popular, though the Nazis later used it for their propaganda."

It should be a celebration, so many good things could be written about it, but the Germans always find a way remember their sins. In the first paragraph.

That was shortly after the birth of audio and video broadcasting. People were especially susceptible to propaganda as it was amplified by the exciting factor of new flashy and noisy media. The population had cheap access to simplified radio receivers of state propaganda [1].

They don't mention it from courtesy, they mention it because it was that evil.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksempf%C3%A4nger

People are always susceptible to propaganda. The Nazis used all medias including radio, movies, newspaper, music, etc.. Every regime did (does) the same, i guess?

My point is that in a celebration day, there are so many positive things to talk about in the first paragraph. 100 years, of an awesome technology, that changed the history. Let's celebrate it!

> People are always susceptible to propaganda.

Not exactly. Propaganda is easily amplified by new media forms. FB radicalization, streetfights fuelled by IG influencers, politicians declaring laws and wars on Twittter are something new.

Have radio had any golden era? Nowadays I can continuously listen to radio, including public ones, maybe 20-30 minutes - until the occurence of first advertising block. The moment the radio starts shouting at me that I need to buy something, it's switched off.

Among the few good things coming form radio is maybe radio drama [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_drama

> Not exactly. Propaganda is easily amplified by new media forms.

Nothing new said here. However the problem isn't in the media itself, but just that more people are consuming it.

> Have radio had any golden era? Nowadays I can continuously listen to radio, including public ones, maybe 20-30 minutes

Not if you are driving while snowing. Nothing while you are in a bunker because of a tornado. Nothing if you are in a land where war or energy blackout happen.

Well, within 10 years of this 'golden age of radio' we had Hitler delivering speeches and effectively using the medium and it's reach to dismantle democracy. Within 20 years they had society on board with genocide.

I have great respect for German public media highlighting this and keeping it alive today. Especially at a time when in nearby eastern european countries the media infrastructure has been turned into a shameless propaganda machine which has been rewriting history with 'cultural broadcasts'. Not to mention operations such as RT further east.

Publicly funded media is wonderful, don't get me wrong. But when the conditions are right it can turn Orwellian pretty fast.

Sure, I'm not saying that it shouldn't be cited in the text. I'm just saying it doesn't belong to the first paragraph, as one of the most important things. You don't celebrate cars/apfelstrudel anniversary in Germany for example with such sad memories. The nazis and every authoritarian regime used/uses every technology available to control the people and spread fear.

Surely, you mean Radio Free Europe? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Libert... )

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