The short-term goal has been achieved. Because the topic is now visible to everyone: In an open letter to ARD and Deutschlandradio, which SZ also reported on, around 250 radio play authors and directors drew attention to their increasingly precarious situation. The tenor: the orders are decreasing, the fees are falling.
The open letter has now provoked a public response from ARD. In it, she for her part raises allegations against the radio play authors. The talk is of false assertions, styleless behavior and exaggerated expectations. In its reply, the ARD criticized an “extremely unusual communication with its clients”. They signed it Valerie Weber, the WDR’s program director responsible for culture and currently chairman of the ARD radio commission, as well as Peter Wiechmann, legal advisor at SWR, who negotiated the radio drama fees for ARD and Deutschlandradio with the association of stage publishers.
For the radio play authors, the answers lie between appeasement and resignation
The radio play authors, on the other hand, maintain that internal communication is ongoing, but has so far remained without consequences. If you speak to some of them, they unanimously say that in every radio play production without exception, the dramaturgists and editors discuss the framework conditions, i.e. money, the number of studio days allowed, the growing uncertainty. The answers they would get would always be somewhere between appeasement and resignation.
In its official statement, ARD also expresses its astonishment that the open letter “discredits” the remuneration rules and collective bargaining agreements, which “were negotiated on an equal footing and are therefore considered appropriate”. The senders of the letter argue that the Association of Stage Publishers had been negotiating for ten years by the public broadcasters who had the upper hand. And that what was finally agreed three years ago as a changed remuneration system no longer corresponds to digital media reality.
Despite the sometimes brusque tone, the ARD also signaled willingness to talk in its reply to the open letter. Together with the Association of Stage Publishers, it invites the authors to a round table. Which in turn is approved by the signatories of the open letter. So far, ARD has only negotiated with the association that represents the publishers with whom many authors have concluded contracts.
A round table could lead to remuneration being regulated
The round table may lead to a resumption of negotiations, at the end of which the remuneration of the radio play makers will be re-regulated. Finally, there is a passage in the ARD statement that can be seen as an admission that the current remuneration system has also failed because of reality from their point of view. For decades, a mixed calculation by the authors was viable: their radio plays are first broadcast, later repeated from time to time – and, above all, taken over by other broadcasters. There is a fee for each broadcast. In total, that added up to a reasonable remuneration.
Basically nothing has changed in the system, only the fee rates were raised three years ago for first broadcasts and lowered for repeats and takeovers. This was intended as an incentive for the ARD broadcasters to plan more takeovers in the program. But the opposite is the case: there are hardly any takeovers. This has above all to do with digitization: If a radio play is accessible to everyone in the audio library for twelve or 18 months anyway, why should a broadcaster still broadcast it on its cultural radio for a fee?
The online surcharge that the authors get is, however, comparatively ridiculous and in no way compensates for the lost takeover fees in previous years. Even the ARD admits that “the bill only works if radio plays are taken over by other ARD houses”. However, RBB, NDR, MDR, HR, RB and SR categorically no longer take over or only in rare exceptional cases. WDR, SWR and BR have significantly reduced the number. It still looks best on Deutschlandradio, although there is also a tendency to be reluctant here.
The question will also be what culture is still worth to the public broadcasters
This saves the public broadcasters a lot of money. More and more artists, however, are faced with the question of whether they can still afford to work for public service broadcasting when their earnings are so blatantly disproportionate to their expenditure, as is now often the case. In this respect, the debate about authors’ fees could have an impact on the great debate about the cultural mandate and the cultural understanding of public law. They could once again raise the question of what culture is still worth to them.
For months, WDR has been in the middle of an argumentative crossfire, there is a dispute about broadcasting slots in the linear cultural program of WDR 3 and WDR 5, the question of what culture is, and the broadcaster’s digital strategy in this context. This Tuesday, the WDR Broadcasting Council will hold an extraordinary meeting, which is an extremely unusual process. It should be about the future design of the program mandate and explicitly also about the culture. There are similar debates in and about the RBB, there have been about HR – and they will probably also take place when SWR 2 changes its offer soon.
One point is that the savings made by the broadcasters do not leave their mark on cultural reporting and cultural production either. How deep these cuts may be, especially in the area of artistic word production, is a matter of public debate.
The second point is: Despite all the cuts, many radio plays and artistic features are still being produced – but under what conditions and with what self-image? The signatories of the open letter complain that the quality standards are to be maintained with less and less money. They also complain about an increase in crime novels and adaptations of bestsellers – the entertaining and easy things as well as material that have already proven themselves on the book market or on the stage would increasingly displace the original radio play. This means pieces that are specially written for the radio. They are the central discipline in this art genre.