The director of broadcasting Berlin-Brandenburg RBB, Patricia Schlesinger, will take over the chairmanship of the ARD in 2022. The general meeting of the ARD broadcasters decided on the change on Wednesday, as the ARD announced. The 60-year-old follows WDR director Tom Buhrow. For the first time in the history of ARD, the RBB took over the chairmanship.
Schlesinger’s term of office will fall during major reform phases in public broadcasting. The federal states, which largely have the say in media policy, have been working on renewing the mandate and structure of the public broadcasters of ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio for a long time.
The RBB is in the ARD comparison – for example in terms of the financial expenditure for the program – in the middle. The big ones are Westdeutsche Rundfunk (WDR), Südwestrundfunk (SWR), Norddeutsche Rundfunk (NDR) and Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR). The general meeting, which consists of the directors and committee chairmen of the ARD broadcasters, elects the chair for one year at a time, which is usually extended by a second year in a second step.