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> In Germany, the situation changed a few years ago, every household has to pay now, even if they don't own a television or radio. This was literally the first

> In Germany, the situation changed a few years ago, every household has to pay now, even if they don't own a television or radio. This was literally the first piece of mail I got when I moved to Germany: a letter demanding I pay for the TV networks I don't watch. I didn't even own a TV by that point, nor would have understood much of what was being said! A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-watchers is justified as it benefits society as a whole. I must say, I've now found some of the programming on the publicly funded TV stations is actually pretty good.

Tomte 6y ago
The trick is to watch the smaller "third programmes" or the programmes with special focus, not the big two (ARD and ZDF). Then you'll see a plethora of really well-made documentations about regions in Germany, regions in the world, culture, archeology etc. The third programmes are also where new comedians, hosts and artists are given a chance to refine their show concepts and prove themselves.
- matthiasv 6y ago
  > The trick is to watch the smaller "third programmes" or the programmes with special focus, not the big two (ARD and ZDF). To be fair, The Big One is actually just all "third programmes" with some additional programming such as news.
  - Tomte 6y ago
    I have no idea what you're talking about. Take a look at the first column of https://www.tvinfo.de/tv-programm/ard https://www.tvinfo.de/tv-programm/ard Pretty much nothing in there is also shown at any third programme. The programmes are almost completely distinct. Evening news are actually the one part where the third programmes show the same as the ARD.
    - matthiasv 6y ago
      I am talking about the fact that the ARD itself is the collective group of all regional broadcasters (look up the name) and any programme is produced either by one of the regional broadcasters or by the shared production company Degeto. And of course is also shown in the "thirds". Take "Rote Rosen" (with questionable quality) and you will see it is also shown on rbb, hr, NDR and MDR.
      - Tomte 6y ago
        > I am talking about the fact that the ARD itself is the collective group of all regional broadcasters (look up the name) I know that. But it's utterly offtopic in this subthread. We're not talking about organisational structures, we're talking about "what can I watch".
        matthiasv 6y ago
        The organisational structure causes what you can watch where and I am arguing that garbage produced by the "Thirds" is not only dumped to Das Erste but shown elsewhere as well. You gave me the current programme, I gave you "Rote Rosen" but that did not convince you. Here is more: "Sturm der Liebe" shown on BR, hr, MDR, NDR and rbb, "Bristant" shown on MDR, "WaPo Bodensee" shown on SWR, hr, NDR and BR … that is not "pretty much nothing".
dsnr 6y ago
> A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-watchers is justified as it benefits society as a whole. Do they really believe these things? This is the Kool-Aid you have to drink as a society, in order not to go crazy when you pay for things you never use and benefit from. If you ever move out, make sure to let them know, otherwise they will keep hunting you for ever.
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  > Do they really believe these things? This is the Kool-Aid you have to drink as a society, in order not to go crazy when you pay for things you never use and benefit from. It's the same argument for taxes, isn't it?
- _ph_ 6y ago
  I firmly believe this, especially in recent times. Those mandatory fees finance the "public" radio and TV stations, which have a set budget and can freely operate within the budget. They are not depending on advertisement revenue (they have a limited amount of that too) and are not working to create a profit. As a consequence, they do have a certain degree of independence and overall can afford into a lot of good quality content. Of course, they have their share of low quality content too, but overall they do offer an environment where good journalism still can happen. Meanwhile even the most reputable newspapers, which traditionally were a place for quality journalism, are struggling a lot and it is not clear how long they can afford to present quality content.
  - diath 6y ago
    In my personal experience public funded TV stations are just a propaganda machine for the current ruling party.
    - ValentinPearce 6y ago
      I've always mostly known public funded radios to be actually quite critical of the current ruling party. I do not watch much televison but I would expect a similar behaviour. Howerver I guess it depends on the country you're from.
varvar 6y ago
The funny thing is that as long as you render any kind of services on any level, they are inevitably to society, you're already benefitting it. Society has exploited your skill, and you have benefitted its members with your services, and for that you get paid. Nobody owes "society" past that point, but it's extremely profitable in the West, specifically, to double tax people with guilt trips into having artificial indebtedness to "society".
mytailorisrich 6y ago
If every household has to pay then it makes sense to abolish the tax and to fund it through the general budget instead, not least if the argument is that this is something that benefits society as a whole. Taxes are not free to manage and collect so this also provides cost savings. We have this debate periodically in the UK. The argument against abolishing the TV licence is usually that a dedicated tax ensures a larger independence of the BBC, which is not "at the mercy" of the government for funding, but I think this is a rather weak argument because the government already ultimately decides the amount of the TV licence fee, which is a tax. Edit following the "reactions": By the way, in the UK it is not allowed to criticise anything related to the BBC (and the NHS) as you can see. Is it the same in Germany? :(
- bipson 6y ago
  Hm, at least in Austria and Germany the government cannot simply change the TV license fee "just because". Of course they ultimately can, but it is not that easy. It still makes a huge difference if money is distributed through the hands of the government, or dedicated 1:1.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    This is a political issue and political issues are debated in Parliament in any case, and that includes the budget. It's no more easy to cut funding if it comes from the general budget rather than from a ring-fenced dedicated tax, and ultimately people will decide what they want when it's elections time (and I can tell you that the majority of people in the UK are very attached to the BBC). This applies for the UK but also I'm sure also for Germany and Austria. IMHO, TV licences are anachronisms at this point (in the UK we still even have TV licence discounts for black and white TVs...) and it's right to at least debate if they are best suited well into the 21st century.
    - bipson 6y ago
      Oh, you haven't been following Austrian politics in the last 10 years it seems. - Parties says x in elections, that doesn't mean they will do x. - Some parties/politicians will use every possible way to force public stations to suit their needs - regardless of what people think. Most people will never know - they just consume TV, radio or tabloids and believe everything they hear/read. - If you don't institutionalize independence, it is gone. - People in Germany and even more so in Austria have no idea how valuable public stations are. In Austria in particular it is a growing trend to criticize and even ridicule public stations - and this sentiment was gladly picked up and fueled by populists. They regularly demand that ORF is defunded - simply because they cannot control their unfavorable reporting on them - and they would like to. They were in the last government and they put "their guys" in every possible position to ensure control. They are still there and undermining the principles from within, trying to slowly destroy the ORF as a whole - either from incompetence or malice, who knows?
philwelch 6y ago
At that point, why don’t they just have the government fund the television networks from tax revenue rather than effectively levying a poll tax earmarked for broadcasters?
- matthiasv 6y ago
  As written down below: to prevent the government from controlling the public television which they easily could if that fee was just another expense in the yearly tax spending budget.
- CodesInChaos 6y ago
  So they can pretend their state TV is independent from the state.
  - stkdump 6y ago
    How does the state exert power over the broadcasters if their income doesn't come from the government? Edit: When I say 'how' I don't mean 'why', I mean 'by what means'.
    - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
      Because the government is the one who gave them the authority to levy the fees from you and the people running the public broadcasters are all directly or indirectly politically connected to the major parties. Which other independent private business can just straight up charge you without you signing up for their service beforehand? In Germany and I guess, in most countries, the public broadcasters are basically low-key propaganda arms of the government. The whole separate tax thing is a intermediate smokescreen to give the public the illusion of independence.
      - xorcist 6y ago
        It's not just any private business. Compare with social insurance fees that must also be paid, it is not something you can opt out of while being part of the society. The fact that it is not a state owned organization is a feature, not a bug. In Germany specifically it is not a revolving door between public broadcasting and politics, and there is clearly journalistic pride in taking down corrupt politicians, so while it is always good to be suspicious of media calling it a propaganda arm is overstating it. Media isn't always neutral but privately financed isn't more neutral than others.
TonyTrapp 6y ago
Note that you pay for much more than just the TV networks; international / English offers such as dw.com are also funded by this.
- germanier 6y ago
  DW is financed by the budget of the federal government, not the broadcast fee like the other public stations.
- realityking 6y ago
  There are so many misconceptions about public broadcasters. Deutsche Welle (which operates dw.com) is 100% funded by federal taxes as it is aimed at foreign markets. https://www.dw.com/de/wer-finanziert-die-dw/a-279073 https://www.dw.com/de/wer-finanziert-die-dw/a-279073
  - TonyTrapp 6y ago
    Thanks for the clarification. Still, the fee covers much more than many people believe, and I think many of those services are quite valuable to have.
kwanbix 6y ago
IIRC in Germany Netflix €14, Disney+ €7, Amazon Prime Video €6. And all 3 I can watch whenever I travel. The TV/Radio Tax is about €18!!! and I can only "enjoy" it in Germany!!! Not only that, the quality of programming quite bad, and to make it even worse, I am forced to pay for it when I don't even watch it. When I moved to Germany it just blown my mind.
- matthiasv 6y ago
  Are you also complaining about other parts of societal funding that does not benefit everyone? You could argue about so many things that might not affect you directly (schools, police, roads, …) but at the end of the day you may also profit indirectly from those as well (more educated people, fewer crimes, proper goods distribution, …).
  - kwanbix 6y ago
    Schools? Police? Roads? Seriously? You gave probably the worst examples you could have. You only missed firemen and hospitals. But even then, why so expensive? It is a lot of money. Germany has 80 million people, assuming 4 persons per house, that is 20 million homes times 18 times 12 is 4 billion euros per year to pay for shitty tv shows.
  - Chris2048 6y ago
    How could you possible live in Germany and not benefit in someway from the roads? And everyone pretty much relies on the existence of the police/hospitals, even if they rarely need their services. A million miles from what is mostly a luxury good with lots of competition.
    - kwanbix 6y ago
      Exactly my point, but I was downvoted.
- germanier 6y ago
  Most of their content is streamable worldwide. Exception being licensed content for which they only acquire the rights for streaming to Germany. Why would they buy worldwide licenses? Netflix and the others also don't do that – they only get licenses for the local market (of which they have much more of course), travelers are just a byproduct.

Tomte 6y ago

The trick is to watch the smaller "third programmes" or the programmes with special focus, not the big two (ARD and ZDF). Then you'll see a plethora of really well-made documentations about regions in Germany, regions in the world, culture, archeology etc. The third programmes are also where new comedians, hosts and artists are given a chance to refine their show concepts and prove themselves.

matthiasv 6y ago
> The trick is to watch the smaller "third programmes" or the programmes with special focus, not the big two (ARD and ZDF). To be fair, The Big One is actually just all "third programmes" with some additional programming such as news.
- Tomte 6y ago
  I have no idea what you're talking about. Take a look at the first column of https://www.tvinfo.de/tv-programm/ard https://www.tvinfo.de/tv-programm/ard Pretty much nothing in there is also shown at any third programme. The programmes are almost completely distinct. Evening news are actually the one part where the third programmes show the same as the ARD.
  - matthiasv 6y ago
    I am talking about the fact that the ARD itself is the collective group of all regional broadcasters (look up the name) and any programme is produced either by one of the regional broadcasters or by the shared production company Degeto. And of course is also shown in the "thirds". Take "Rote Rosen" (with questionable quality) and you will see it is also shown on rbb, hr, NDR and MDR.
    - Tomte 6y ago
      > I am talking about the fact that the ARD itself is the collective group of all regional broadcasters (look up the name) I know that. But it's utterly offtopic in this subthread. We're not talking about organisational structures, we're talking about "what can I watch".
      - matthiasv 6y ago
        The organisational structure causes what you can watch where and I am arguing that garbage produced by the "Thirds" is not only dumped to Das Erste but shown elsewhere as well. You gave me the current programme, I gave you "Rote Rosen" but that did not convince you. Here is more: "Sturm der Liebe" shown on BR, hr, MDR, NDR and rbb, "Bristant" shown on MDR, "WaPo Bodensee" shown on SWR, hr, NDR and BR … that is not "pretty much nothing".

dsnr 6y ago

> A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-watchers is justified as it benefits society as a whole. Do they really believe these things? This is the Kool-Aid you have to drink as a society, in order not to go crazy when you pay for things you never use and benefit from. If you ever move out, make sure to let them know, otherwise they will keep hunting you for ever.

Judgmentality 6y ago
> Do they really believe these things? This is the Kool-Aid you have to drink as a society, in order not to go crazy when you pay for things you never use and benefit from. It's the same argument for taxes, isn't it?
_ph_ 6y ago
I firmly believe this, especially in recent times. Those mandatory fees finance the "public" radio and TV stations, which have a set budget and can freely operate within the budget. They are not depending on advertisement revenue (they have a limited amount of that too) and are not working to create a profit. As a consequence, they do have a certain degree of independence and overall can afford into a lot of good quality content. Of course, they have their share of low quality content too, but overall they do offer an environment where good journalism still can happen. Meanwhile even the most reputable newspapers, which traditionally were a place for quality journalism, are struggling a lot and it is not clear how long they can afford to present quality content.
- diath 6y ago
  In my personal experience public funded TV stations are just a propaganda machine for the current ruling party.
  - ValentinPearce 6y ago
    I've always mostly known public funded radios to be actually quite critical of the current ruling party. I do not watch much televison but I would expect a similar behaviour. Howerver I guess it depends on the country you're from.

varvar 6y ago

The funny thing is that as long as you render any kind of services on any level, they are inevitably to society, you're already benefitting it. Society has exploited your skill, and you have benefitted its members with your services, and for that you get paid. Nobody owes "society" past that point, but it's extremely profitable in the West, specifically, to double tax people with guilt trips into having artificial indebtedness to "society".

mytailorisrich 6y ago

If every household has to pay then it makes sense to abolish the tax and to fund it through the general budget instead, not least if the argument is that this is something that benefits society as a whole. Taxes are not free to manage and collect so this also provides cost savings. We have this debate periodically in the UK. The argument against abolishing the TV licence is usually that a dedicated tax ensures a larger independence of the BBC, which is not "at the mercy" of the government for funding, but I think this is a rather weak argument because the government already ultimately decides the amount of the TV licence fee, which is a tax. Edit following the "reactions": By the way, in the UK it is not allowed to criticise anything related to the BBC (and the NHS) as you can see. Is it the same in Germany? :(

bipson 6y ago
Hm, at least in Austria and Germany the government cannot simply change the TV license fee "just because". Of course they ultimately can, but it is not that easy. It still makes a huge difference if money is distributed through the hands of the government, or dedicated 1:1.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  This is a political issue and political issues are debated in Parliament in any case, and that includes the budget. It's no more easy to cut funding if it comes from the general budget rather than from a ring-fenced dedicated tax, and ultimately people will decide what they want when it's elections time (and I can tell you that the majority of people in the UK are very attached to the BBC). This applies for the UK but also I'm sure also for Germany and Austria. IMHO, TV licences are anachronisms at this point (in the UK we still even have TV licence discounts for black and white TVs...) and it's right to at least debate if they are best suited well into the 21st century.
  - bipson 6y ago
    Oh, you haven't been following Austrian politics in the last 10 years it seems. - Parties says x in elections, that doesn't mean they will do x. - Some parties/politicians will use every possible way to force public stations to suit their needs - regardless of what people think. Most people will never know - they just consume TV, radio or tabloids and believe everything they hear/read. - If you don't institutionalize independence, it is gone. - People in Germany and even more so in Austria have no idea how valuable public stations are. In Austria in particular it is a growing trend to criticize and even ridicule public stations - and this sentiment was gladly picked up and fueled by populists. They regularly demand that ORF is defunded - simply because they cannot control their unfavorable reporting on them - and they would like to. They were in the last government and they put "their guys" in every possible position to ensure control. They are still there and undermining the principles from within, trying to slowly destroy the ORF as a whole - either from incompetence or malice, who knows?

philwelch 6y ago

At that point, why don’t they just have the government fund the television networks from tax revenue rather than effectively levying a poll tax earmarked for broadcasters?

matthiasv 6y ago
As written down below: to prevent the government from controlling the public television which they easily could if that fee was just another expense in the yearly tax spending budget.
CodesInChaos 6y ago
So they can pretend their state TV is independent from the state.
- stkdump 6y ago
  How does the state exert power over the broadcasters if their income doesn't come from the government? Edit: When I say 'how' I don't mean 'why', I mean 'by what means'.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    Because the government is the one who gave them the authority to levy the fees from you and the people running the public broadcasters are all directly or indirectly politically connected to the major parties. Which other independent private business can just straight up charge you without you signing up for their service beforehand? In Germany and I guess, in most countries, the public broadcasters are basically low-key propaganda arms of the government. The whole separate tax thing is a intermediate smokescreen to give the public the illusion of independence.
    - xorcist 6y ago
      It's not just any private business. Compare with social insurance fees that must also be paid, it is not something you can opt out of while being part of the society. The fact that it is not a state owned organization is a feature, not a bug. In Germany specifically it is not a revolving door between public broadcasting and politics, and there is clearly journalistic pride in taking down corrupt politicians, so while it is always good to be suspicious of media calling it a propaganda arm is overstating it. Media isn't always neutral but privately financed isn't more neutral than others.

TonyTrapp 6y ago

Note that you pay for much more than just the TV networks; international / English offers such as dw.com are also funded by this.

germanier 6y ago
DW is financed by the budget of the federal government, not the broadcast fee like the other public stations.
realityking 6y ago
There are so many misconceptions about public broadcasters. Deutsche Welle (which operates dw.com) is 100% funded by federal taxes as it is aimed at foreign markets. https://www.dw.com/de/wer-finanziert-die-dw/a-279073 https://www.dw.com/de/wer-finanziert-die-dw/a-279073
- TonyTrapp 6y ago
  Thanks for the clarification. Still, the fee covers much more than many people believe, and I think many of those services are quite valuable to have.

kwanbix 6y ago

IIRC in Germany Netflix €14, Disney+ €7, Amazon Prime Video €6. And all 3 I can watch whenever I travel. The TV/Radio Tax is about €18!!! and I can only "enjoy" it in Germany!!! Not only that, the quality of programming quite bad, and to make it even worse, I am forced to pay for it when I don't even watch it. When I moved to Germany it just blown my mind.

matthiasv 6y ago
Are you also complaining about other parts of societal funding that does not benefit everyone? You could argue about so many things that might not affect you directly (schools, police, roads, …) but at the end of the day you may also profit indirectly from those as well (more educated people, fewer crimes, proper goods distribution, …).
- kwanbix 6y ago
  Schools? Police? Roads? Seriously? You gave probably the worst examples you could have. You only missed firemen and hospitals. But even then, why so expensive? It is a lot of money. Germany has 80 million people, assuming 4 persons per house, that is 20 million homes times 18 times 12 is 4 billion euros per year to pay for shitty tv shows.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  How could you possible live in Germany and not benefit in someway from the roads? And everyone pretty much relies on the existence of the police/hospitals, even if they rarely need their services. A million miles from what is mostly a luxury good with lots of competition.
  - kwanbix 6y ago
    Exactly my point, but I was downvoted.
germanier 6y ago
Most of their content is streamable worldwide. Exception being licensed content for which they only acquire the rights for streaming to Germany. Why would they buy worldwide licenses? Netflix and the others also don't do that – they only get licenses for the local market (of which they have much more of course), travelers are just a byproduct.