The news that the previous head of film and culture, Martina Zöllner, is to become head of programming in the badly hit RBB is an interesting signal in two respects. On the one hand, because the 61-year-old stands like no one else for quality television, which ARD is currently having to show even more than ever before.
In her highly successful career as a programmer at SWR and RBB, Zöllner was responsible for a large number of award-winning projects. At RBB, for example, productions as different as the series were created under her aegis Legal affairs (high gloss, streaming affine, cool) and Tina mobile (everyday world, Berlin, warm-hearted) and Waiting for the bus (Comedy, Brandenburg, weird). Zöllner not only has an excellent reputation in the ARD, her appointment to – at least – this post was actually an option.
The other reason why her appointment – which the Broadcasting Council still has to approve – is exciting: it is a first step to ending the power vacuum that has formed around the interim director Katrin Vernau – who was not called interim director at RBB wants to be, but is only elected for one year. The ambition of the previous WDR administrative director to remain director in Berlin beyond that can be assumed. Since the broadcaster threw out the legal director, the administrative director and the production director in the aftermath of the Schlesinger affair – various labor court proceedings are pending – and agreed with the program director to terminate the contract, Vernau has ruled de facto without management as a kind of sole ruler.
What the proven programming expert Zöllner can achieve in her new role depends crucially on Vernau. The has announced a rigid austerity course, mainly at the expense of the program. We can look forward to the details, which should be known in the coming weeks. Appointing a passionate program maker like Zöllner and then letting her run into nowhere as an executor would certainly damage her, but also the RBB.