ARD wants to combine “efficiency and excellence” in the future. The directors of ARD agreed on this bold decision at their two-day meeting in Bonn, where reforms were discussed. The step into “the digital future of the ARD” should succeed by freeing up financial resources. On the one hand, this should be done through more cross-channel cooperation – on the other hand, by canceling existing offers.
This primarily affects ARD’s social media offering, which is actually very extensive with currently 800 active accounts. According to an ARD press release, about a quarter of the existing channels are to be discontinued.
More important than the financial savings is “the focus on particularly strong offers
“In a first step, 150 social media accounts were identified that could be discontinued,” explains an ARD spokesman. This list should be checked by July by the state broadcasters responsible for the offers. “In the end, the ARD media companies decide for themselves whether the list will be fully implemented,” said the spokesman. The aim, however, is to finally get to the planned quarter.
It is already specifically planned that the content of the 31 ARD foreign studios on Instagram will no longer be on the individual, small accounts, such as @ard.newyork (10.3 thousand followers) or @ardbruessel (3,700 followers) to play. Instead, the content should be sent to the “wide-ranging information brands” from the daily News (4.4 million followers) or world mirror (194 thousand followers) go. The correspondents should thus reach more people. In addition, the social media offers are to be bundled in the classic segment.
ARD also wants to revise its Twitter concept. According to the press release, since up-to-date information is primarily expected here, channels that do not correspond to this orientation should be discontinued with a few exceptions. In any case, ARD wants to “watch the platform closely” because “it is unclear how Twitter will develop”.
The exact cost effect of the measure cannot be quantified, so the ARD spokesman on SZ demand, as long as the exact channels are not identified. More important than the financial savings, however, is “the focus on particularly strong offers, for which the waiver of some accounts should also free up manpower”.