5 ms·

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 wh

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.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    You're contradicting yourself. You say it's good that the TV tax is levied by the government like social insurance fees but instead of it going directly to the government like social insurance fees, it goes to an "independent" organization and that's the "feature"? LOL, what?! Do you really think that money is no strings attached? Ideally it would be and I guess that's the idea on paper but in practice, the public broadcasters almost never criticize the ruling coalition on the "don't bite the hand that feeds you" rule. IIRC during the 2015 migrant crisis, no public debate was allowed on public TV over the decisions made to open the borders and the only opinion allowed on TV was that "it's good for everyone" with any argument against mass immigration (not immigrants themselves) heavily verboten.
    - galvin 6y ago
      Democracy requires an informed electorate and publicly funded broadcasters are a means to achieve that. The government must have as little control as possible over their funding to ensure their journalistic independence. That's the guiding theory at resulted in most European countries having some variation of a public broadcaster funded by TV (formally radio) licences. There are many implementation differences between countries and none of them are perfect but I would argue that those I'm familiar with serve their purpose.
    - hef19898 6y ago
      That money has no strings attached, unless the amunt is about to be changed. An changes to the fee have to be agreed upon by both chambers, Bundestag and Bundesrat. The Bundesat, representing the individual states, means state parliaments have to agree first. That's the reason why the last fee increase fell through after one state feared backlash from the AfD leaning members of the CDU (Merkals party) and voted against it. Once the fee is agreed upon, it cannot be changed either way with out every parliamnt agreeing to do so. The money cannot be held back by te "government" (we have coalitions, and those change regularly every 10 years or so). Neither can it be held back for state broadcasters (third programms) by the local governments or parliaments. Sounds pretty tempering free to me. And the debate did happen in 2015, or didn't you see the same panel discussions I saw? It also happened in print and the public broacasters reported aboutthat debate in their news segments. The nature of these news segments being to report facts and not to debate. It just turned out that only one party really opposed the opening of boarders, along with the right wings of the cnservative parties CDU and CSU. Thos are not the majority but rather a very very loud minority.
      - realityking 6y ago
        Nitpicking but this is a common misconception: > An changes to the fee have to be agreed upon by both chambers, Bundestag and Bundesrat. The federal government, and thus Bundestag and Bundesrat, have no say in the funding or operation of Germany's public broadcasters. The exception being Deutsche Welle which is not available in Germany and has an "external" audience. The funding on operation of public broadcasters is instead determined by a compact between the 16 states.
- dash2 6y ago
  >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. This claim elides the difference between e.g. the BBC or Deutsche Welle and RT. It would be naive to think that the BBC is wholly independent of politicians. But it would be equally naive to think that they're no better than a state propaganda outlet.
  - flir 6y ago
    I can't speak to Germany, but I view the BBC as the voice of the Establishment. That's a subtly different thing from being the voice of the government of the day. That's why they look right-biased if you're looking at their news output, and left-biased if you're looking at their drama/comedy output: they're just reflecting the Established status quo.
- mattlutze 6y ago
  The public broadcasters in Germany aren't propaganda arms of the government and are generally respected across political affiliation, except perhaps by the sort of folks that think AfD has the right approach. They may exhibit some editorial lean (https://www.dw.com/en/a-dual-broadcasting-system/a-435426 https://www.dw.com/en/a-dual-broadcasting-system/a-435426), but from everything I've seen not even to the level that folks in the US complain about CNBC or Fox News. Germany, in fact, comes in with one of the highest press freedom scores from Reporters without Borders: https://rsf.org/en/germany https://rsf.org/en/germany , https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/germany-media-profile/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/germany-media-profile/ National public Radio and the Public Broadcast Company in the US, in further illustration, hasn't been Donald Trump's megaphone. Just generally, independent journalism is important and can be subverted whether the sources are public or private. Open pluralistic oversight is most important to maintaining balance and Germany seems to get it right, while also making sure the media can be accessible to any resident. Seems a not-awful approach to trying to ensure a more-educated population, which is also good for a democracy.
  - account42 6y ago
    > except perhaps by the sort of folks that think AfD has the right approach Ah right, everyone that disagrees must be one of those people so their opinion doesn't matter. > They may exhibit some editorial lean More than "some". > CNBC or Fox News Those are corporations that noone is not forced to fund if you disagree with them. > Just generally, independent journalism is important Except you can't give certain organizations a unique monopoly to collect fees from everyone and then call it independent with a straight face. Also, journalism is only a tiny part of german public TV channels. They also throw tons of money on sports broadcasting and game shows while promoting gambling. Add to that the insanity of having a local channel for every state. Even if you agree that public funded news is a good thing, the current setup is hardly an efficient way to accomplish that. > Seems a not-awful approach to trying to ensure a more-educated population, which is also good for a democracy. You can call it "education" if you want. Finally, unlike taxes, the TV fee is not means tested in Germany meaning that if you have a low income and don't fall into the few groups that are excempt then it is a very real burden.
cncndhJ 6y ago
Because the broadcasters need politicians and courts to confirm that the TV protection money is constitutional. It is protection money: You haven't ordered any service and if you don't pay they'll make you pay and ruin your credit score in the process. In the collection process they pretend to be a government institution to avoid going through local courts, which sometimes are against them. EDIT: Also, I'm beginning to wonder why any criticism of the German government or especially state TV is being downvoted here. Civil servants have a lot of time ...
- hef19898 6y ago
  I think it is downvoted because it ignores the complete historical context of this system. It was put in place after WW2, and with a lot of things implemented in the German Verfassung, it drew curcial lessons from the Nazis rise to power and their way of ruling. Broadcasting, as opposed to the 100% Nazi party controll of media before, was thus setup to be independetly funded and run. The ZDF, if memory serves well, is allowed to be more of a government policy outlet than the ARD and the third programms. The goal is to prevent media to become government controlled, with the added benefit of being independent from add revenue. And that principal is still pretty solid.
  - bnlpxg 6y ago
    The arguments you make are orthogonal to the discussion whether TV fees should be protection money or based on actual TV ownership. The latter has been the status quo in Germany for the better part of time since WW2, and arguably people were less radicalized on both sides of the political spectrum than now. It is when institutions get overtly greedy that people start to complain.
  - realityking 6y ago
    > The ZDF, if memory serves well, is allowed to be more of a government policy outlet than the ARD and the third programms. This was the original intent: Adenauer wanted a federal public broadcaster to compete with ARD which he considered too critical of his government. The constitutional court shut that down as only the states have the right to set up public broadcasters with domestic transmissions (Deutsche Welle is focused externally). Today ZDF and ARD have the same legal framework, they are just organized differently.
hef19898 6y ago
Thanks for the edit. In Germany, the means are to put people leaning to certain parties in top positions. Or people with the right connections. As a result, the bavarian contribution, the BR, is not necessarly known for its liberal agenda. Others are more left leaning. One other way is to have former press and spokes persons from a government taking up positions at the braodcasters. When the current (?) spokesman of Angela Merkal left as a news presenter from the ARD (or ZDF, to lazy to loo it up...),that was regarded as a braek from customs and more or less a no-no affecting the independance of these broadcasters. TL;DR: Political parties, and not so much the "government", use soft power to influence these briadcasters. Quite often by having certain people selected for certain jobs.
- stkdump 6y ago
  Is public broadcasting more prone to these things than privately funded broadcasting? If yes, why?
  - hef19898 6y ago
    No, if anything I'd say even less. Private broadcasting can be influenced by add customers, politics and so on. Public briadcasting more or less only by soft political influence. Which tends to balance itself out between parties anyway. So if anything, basic bias tends to be the best reflection of the current center I can think of.
johannes1234321 6y ago
The lines are blurry, but we can see different cases. A notable case in 2009 was the contract as Editor in Chief of Nikolaus Beendet, which wasn't extended since Roland Koch didn't want to and went up to the Constitutional Court, which ruled that there was too much political influence at ZDF, leading to changed oversight, which still is close. TlRecent case is the "coalition crisis" in Saxony-Anhalt, where the parliament blocked the new rates. But it's complicated as bodies need some form of democratic legitimation and with the "Sozialwahl" we have one failing experiment of doing extra elections, aside from parliament elections ... where nobody knows who the candidates are and what they do ...

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.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  You're contradicting yourself. You say it's good that the TV tax is levied by the government like social insurance fees but instead of it going directly to the government like social insurance fees, it goes to an "independent" organization and that's the "feature"? LOL, what?! Do you really think that money is no strings attached? Ideally it would be and I guess that's the idea on paper but in practice, the public broadcasters almost never criticize the ruling coalition on the "don't bite the hand that feeds you" rule. IIRC during the 2015 migrant crisis, no public debate was allowed on public TV over the decisions made to open the borders and the only opinion allowed on TV was that "it's good for everyone" with any argument against mass immigration (not immigrants themselves) heavily verboten.
  - galvin 6y ago
    Democracy requires an informed electorate and publicly funded broadcasters are a means to achieve that. The government must have as little control as possible over their funding to ensure their journalistic independence. That's the guiding theory at resulted in most European countries having some variation of a public broadcaster funded by TV (formally radio) licences. There are many implementation differences between countries and none of them are perfect but I would argue that those I'm familiar with serve their purpose.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    That money has no strings attached, unless the amunt is about to be changed. An changes to the fee have to be agreed upon by both chambers, Bundestag and Bundesrat. The Bundesat, representing the individual states, means state parliaments have to agree first. That's the reason why the last fee increase fell through after one state feared backlash from the AfD leaning members of the CDU (Merkals party) and voted against it. Once the fee is agreed upon, it cannot be changed either way with out every parliamnt agreeing to do so. The money cannot be held back by te "government" (we have coalitions, and those change regularly every 10 years or so). Neither can it be held back for state broadcasters (third programms) by the local governments or parliaments. Sounds pretty tempering free to me. And the debate did happen in 2015, or didn't you see the same panel discussions I saw? It also happened in print and the public broacasters reported aboutthat debate in their news segments. The nature of these news segments being to report facts and not to debate. It just turned out that only one party really opposed the opening of boarders, along with the right wings of the cnservative parties CDU and CSU. Thos are not the majority but rather a very very loud minority.
    - realityking 6y ago
      Nitpicking but this is a common misconception: > An changes to the fee have to be agreed upon by both chambers, Bundestag and Bundesrat. The federal government, and thus Bundestag and Bundesrat, have no say in the funding or operation of Germany's public broadcasters. The exception being Deutsche Welle which is not available in Germany and has an "external" audience. The funding on operation of public broadcasters is instead determined by a compact between the 16 states.
dash2 6y ago
>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. This claim elides the difference between e.g. the BBC or Deutsche Welle and RT. It would be naive to think that the BBC is wholly independent of politicians. But it would be equally naive to think that they're no better than a state propaganda outlet.
- flir 6y ago
  I can't speak to Germany, but I view the BBC as the voice of the Establishment. That's a subtly different thing from being the voice of the government of the day. That's why they look right-biased if you're looking at their news output, and left-biased if you're looking at their drama/comedy output: they're just reflecting the Established status quo.
mattlutze 6y ago
The public broadcasters in Germany aren't propaganda arms of the government and are generally respected across political affiliation, except perhaps by the sort of folks that think AfD has the right approach. They may exhibit some editorial lean (https://www.dw.com/en/a-dual-broadcasting-system/a-435426 https://www.dw.com/en/a-dual-broadcasting-system/a-435426), but from everything I've seen not even to the level that folks in the US complain about CNBC or Fox News. Germany, in fact, comes in with one of the highest press freedom scores from Reporters without Borders: https://rsf.org/en/germany https://rsf.org/en/germany , https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/germany-media-profile/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/germany-media-profile/ National public Radio and the Public Broadcast Company in the US, in further illustration, hasn't been Donald Trump's megaphone. Just generally, independent journalism is important and can be subverted whether the sources are public or private. Open pluralistic oversight is most important to maintaining balance and Germany seems to get it right, while also making sure the media can be accessible to any resident. Seems a not-awful approach to trying to ensure a more-educated population, which is also good for a democracy.
- account42 6y ago
  > except perhaps by the sort of folks that think AfD has the right approach Ah right, everyone that disagrees must be one of those people so their opinion doesn't matter. > They may exhibit some editorial lean More than "some". > CNBC or Fox News Those are corporations that noone is not forced to fund if you disagree with them. > Just generally, independent journalism is important Except you can't give certain organizations a unique monopoly to collect fees from everyone and then call it independent with a straight face. Also, journalism is only a tiny part of german public TV channels. They also throw tons of money on sports broadcasting and game shows while promoting gambling. Add to that the insanity of having a local channel for every state. Even if you agree that public funded news is a good thing, the current setup is hardly an efficient way to accomplish that. > Seems a not-awful approach to trying to ensure a more-educated population, which is also good for a democracy. You can call it "education" if you want. Finally, unlike taxes, the TV fee is not means tested in Germany meaning that if you have a low income and don't fall into the few groups that are excempt then it is a very real burden.

cncndhJ 6y ago

Because the broadcasters need politicians and courts to confirm that the TV protection money is constitutional. It is protection money: You haven't ordered any service and if you don't pay they'll make you pay and ruin your credit score in the process. In the collection process they pretend to be a government institution to avoid going through local courts, which sometimes are against them. EDIT: Also, I'm beginning to wonder why any criticism of the German government or especially state TV is being downvoted here. Civil servants have a lot of time ...

hef19898 6y ago
I think it is downvoted because it ignores the complete historical context of this system. It was put in place after WW2, and with a lot of things implemented in the German Verfassung, it drew curcial lessons from the Nazis rise to power and their way of ruling. Broadcasting, as opposed to the 100% Nazi party controll of media before, was thus setup to be independetly funded and run. The ZDF, if memory serves well, is allowed to be more of a government policy outlet than the ARD and the third programms. The goal is to prevent media to become government controlled, with the added benefit of being independent from add revenue. And that principal is still pretty solid.
- bnlpxg 6y ago
  The arguments you make are orthogonal to the discussion whether TV fees should be protection money or based on actual TV ownership. The latter has been the status quo in Germany for the better part of time since WW2, and arguably people were less radicalized on both sides of the political spectrum than now. It is when institutions get overtly greedy that people start to complain.
- realityking 6y ago
  > The ZDF, if memory serves well, is allowed to be more of a government policy outlet than the ARD and the third programms. This was the original intent: Adenauer wanted a federal public broadcaster to compete with ARD which he considered too critical of his government. The constitutional court shut that down as only the states have the right to set up public broadcasters with domestic transmissions (Deutsche Welle is focused externally). Today ZDF and ARD have the same legal framework, they are just organized differently.

hef19898 6y ago

Thanks for the edit. In Germany, the means are to put people leaning to certain parties in top positions. Or people with the right connections. As a result, the bavarian contribution, the BR, is not necessarly known for its liberal agenda. Others are more left leaning. One other way is to have former press and spokes persons from a government taking up positions at the braodcasters. When the current (?) spokesman of Angela Merkal left as a news presenter from the ARD (or ZDF, to lazy to loo it up...),that was regarded as a braek from customs and more or less a no-no affecting the independance of these broadcasters. TL;DR: Political parties, and not so much the "government", use soft power to influence these briadcasters. Quite often by having certain people selected for certain jobs.

stkdump 6y ago
Is public broadcasting more prone to these things than privately funded broadcasting? If yes, why?
- hef19898 6y ago
  No, if anything I'd say even less. Private broadcasting can be influenced by add customers, politics and so on. Public briadcasting more or less only by soft political influence. Which tends to balance itself out between parties anyway. So if anything, basic bias tends to be the best reflection of the current center I can think of.

johannes1234321 6y ago

The lines are blurry, but we can see different cases. A notable case in 2009 was the contract as Editor in Chief of Nikolaus Beendet, which wasn't extended since Roland Koch didn't want to and went up to the Constitutional Court, which ruled that there was too much political influence at ZDF, leading to changed oversight, which still is close. TlRecent case is the "coalition crisis" in Saxony-Anhalt, where the parliament blocked the new rates. But it's complicated as bodies need some form of democratic legitimation and with the "Sozialwahl" we have one failing experiment of doing extra elections, aside from parliament elections ... where nobody knows who the candidates are and what they do ...