Extraordinary meeting of the WDR Broadcasting Council – media

It is an unusual process: next Tuesday, the WDR Broadcasting Council will hold an extraordinary meeting. More than a third of its 60 members requested this three-hour special meeting. At the meeting of the entire plenary session, the WDR’s programming mandate will be discussed very publicly and how the largest of the ARD state broadcasters intends to fulfill this in the future.

The starting point of this initiative by parts of the Broadcasting Council are debates that started at the beginning of the year and which continue to this day: on the cultural mandate and the concept of culture of the public broadcasters and especially of the WDR. Changes in the radio program of WDR 3 as well as guest contributions and interviews by the artistic director Tom Buhrow and the program director responsible for NRW, knowledge and culture Valerie Weber in the press had caused some irritation and protests.

Jörg Schönenborn, Program Director Information, Fiction and Entertainment, will explain himself on Tuesday

The Broadcasting Council then requested strategic reports from the management on the future of WDR. Weber and Buhrow presented their plans to the board of directors in March and May, respectively. Jörg Schönenborn, Program Director Information, Fiction and Entertainment, will explain himself in the extraordinary meeting on Tuesday. It is a discussion that no longer just revolves around the WDR’s relationship to art and culture. It is fundamentally about the design of the program mandate.

The initiators of the special session aim to ensure that this central question of the future is not only debated in the specialist committees of the Broadcasting Council, but also in plenary. The background to this is that public broadcasting and thus also the WDR are facing radical changes. The funding has to be redefined after the political dissent over the premium increase. In addition, the broadcasting commission of the federal states is currently negotiating a state media treaty in which the mandate and structure of the public broadcasters will be regulated.

The broadcasters should have more flexibility and independence in their decisions

There is still disagreement between the federal states on many issues. However, it is becoming apparent that the broadcasters should be given more flexibility and independence in their decisions on how they can best fulfill their mandate at a time when the distribution channels and user habits are changing dramatically. In other words: which linear programs and which digital platforms you want to operate in the future.

The special session on Tuesday is to be the beginning of a debate on the future shape of the WDR, which will be conducted in the body and in the broadcaster. The initiators of the debate see a need for clarification, for example, in the online first strategy proclaimed by Tom Buhrow, after all, the majority of the audience continues to use the programs linearly. In addition, there should be talk of program cooperation with other broadcasters, regional reporting and the financial contribution that WDR makes for the joint TV program Das Erste. The cultural commission will also be the subject of the special session and the WDR’s concept of culture, which has recently been increasingly interpreted.