ARD (broadcaster)


ARD is a joint organisation of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters. It was founded in 1950 in West Germany to represent the common interests of the new, decentralised, post-war broadcasting services—in particular the introduction of a joint television network.
ARD has a budget of €6.9 billion, 22,612 employees and is the largest public broadcaster network in the world. The budget comes primarily from a mandatory licence fee which every household, company and public institution, regardless of television ownership, is required by law to pay. For an ordinary household the fee is €18.36 per month, as of 2023. Households living on welfare are exempt from the fee. The fees are not collected directly by ARD, but by the Beitragsservice von ARD, [ZDF und Deutschlandradio|Beitragsservice], a common organisation by the ARD member broadcasters, the second public TV broadcaster ZDF, and Deutschlandradio.
ARD maintains and operates a national television network, called Das Erste to differentiate it from ZDF, a.k.a. "das Zweite", which started in 1963, as a separate public TV broadcaster. The ARD network began broadcasting on 31 October 1954 under the name of Deutsches Fernsehen, becoming Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen with a corporate redesign in 1984; it adopted its current short name in 1994. ARD's programmes are aired over its own terrestrial broadcast network, as well as via cable, satellite and IPTV.
ARD also produces two free-to-air channels and participates in the production of Phoenix, KiKa, 3sat, arte, and Funk.
ARD's programming is produced by its regional members, Hessischer Rundfunk, Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Radio Bremen, Rundfunk Berlin–Brandenburg, Saarländischer Rundfunk, Südwestrundfunk and Westdeutscher Rundfunk ), which operate 54 regional and local radio stations and seven regional TV networks, some of which have opt-outs at during the day. Deutsche Welle, Germany's international broadcaster, is also a member of ARD.
WWW Official Site𝕏 arddeYT UCqmQ1b96-PNH4coqgHTuTlA

History

Name

‡public-law broadcasting institutions means broadcasters which are not privately owned and are not governmental radio or TV. ARD is not 'owned by' anybody, particularly not by "Germany". ARD members like BR are not owned by their Land, either. With the Rundfunkfreiheit, they have an independent position.

1940s and 1950s

The winning Allies of World War II determined that German radio after World War II would not broadcast the same propaganda as the pre-war Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft. A federal structure, the renunciation of state influence and the avoidance of economic dependence were to be the key of the radio and TV institutions under public law. The legal form of the new entity was Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts, a non-government and nonprofit organisation with its own administration under the control of two commissions, the Rundfunkrat and the Verwaltungsrat, in which different stakeholders from German public life were represented.
ARD's founding members were Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk, the station for the former British zone, Südwestfunk, the station in the French zone, and four stations located in the former American sector— Bayerischer Rundfunk, Süddeutscher Rundfunk, Hessischer Rundfunk, and Radio Bremen. The new entity was financed by an obligatory fee that every German household with at least one radio receiver paid. Each station received the money collected in its state. Larger ARD members subsidised smaller ones up to a certain extent.
In 1947, American military governor Lucius D. Clay declared diversity of public opinion as the main aim of post-war media policy. Individuals aligned with the post-war Allied forces in their respective sectors of Germany had a local influence on local regional broadcasters. NDR cites the influence of Hugh Greene on the early years of their organisation.
After the creation of individual broadcasting agencies for most German federal states these principles were further consolidated by Länder broadcasting laws, decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court, and state treaties between the Länder. ARD members are thus free of government influence and rely for only a small part of their income on advertising. They are financed mainly from licence fees from radio and TV owners, which are set through a complex political process. The mandated aim of the ARD corporations is not only to inform and to entertain but also to encourage the integration of various parts of society and allow minorities a say in programming.
In the 1950s the ARD radio services became the major factor of the mass media system in West Germany. As early as 1952 the ARD radio stations had ten million listeners. However, the radio stations operated on a regional level, and it was only the development of a television umbrella that helped the ARD to establish itself nationwide. The broadcasting of a countrywide TV broadcast service was the goal of the ARD from the outset and the go-ahead for this was given at the end of 1952. The same year ARD was admitted as a fully active member of the European Broadcasting Union and the "German sound archive", now German Broadcasting Archive, was established as a joint facility of the ARD.
In 1955 the founding member NWDR split into today's NDR and WDR. The year before the smaller SFB was split off. The first daily news feature, the Tagesschau, went on the air from Hamburg in 1952. The famous 8:00 pm chime and announcement "Hier ist das Erste Deutsche Fernsehen mit der Tagesschau" remains an ARD hallmark today. The broadcast attracts an average of 8 million viewers.

1960s–1980s

After starting with a mere two-hour schedule per night, television became more widespread in Germany in the 1960s. Color broadcasts were introduced in 1967. Without competition from private broadcasters, the ARD stations made considerable progress in becoming modern and respected broadcasters. ZDF, a second public television broadcaster with a centralized national organization structure, began its programming in 1963, but ARD would not encounter private competition in Germany until 1984. The ARD stations have also been a significant force in German politics; such investigative news magazines as Monitor and Panorama still reach millions of viewers every week. The environmental movement increased in popularity during the 1980s largely as a result of the disclosures made by ARD.
When private/commercial German-language broadcasters were admitted in Germany by federal law in the mid-1980s, ARD television made subtle changes, adapting somewhat by producing programs oriented to a larger audience for their national networks and shifting many cultural and news programs to the regional networks and to newly created niche channels.
Informational television programs and the orientation of "Deutschlandfunk" programs towards the GDR were of importance to the eventual collapse of the GDR. Established in 1974, the ARD bureau in East Berlin made ARD television the most important source of information for GDR citizens, eighty percent of whom could watch what they referred to as "Westfernsehen". Notwithstanding obstruction on the part of GDR authorities and the repeated expulsion of their correspondents, the ARD-Tagesschau and Deutschlandfunk transmitted a report about the Leipzig Monday Demonstrations as early as September 1989.

1990s

After the unification and the closure of the Deutscher Fernsehfunk, two new regional broadcasters were established in the East, becoming ARD members in 1992. These were originally the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, and Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg. The existing NDR service expanded into the north-east, where it also covered Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The ORB service has since merged with the former Sender Freies Berlin to become Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg in 2003.
Another merger took place between two member organisations of the ARD in 1998. The former Süddeutscher Rundfunk and Südwestfunk became Südwestrundfunk on 1 October 1998.

Programming

Radio

Today, ARD member stations usually produce their radio programming. Some ARD member stations usually collaborate for common radio services. Most ARD stations, however, will have at least a news-oriented radio station, a classical music station, a youth-oriented station, and a cultural station. At night some stations will relay common night programming produced on a rota system by the ARD stations themselves. There are four common night programming services: Hitnacht, Nachtkonzert, Infonacht, and Popnacht. Most services are on the FM broadcast band, though some services are also available on DAB.
A similar network intended for national coverage is called Deutschlandradio, however, Deutschlandradio is not an ARD member – instead, Deutschlandradio is controlled by both ARD and ZDF. Deutschlandradio provides two terrestrial radio services: Deutschlandfunk, a news-oriented service, and Deutschlandfunk Kultur, a culture-oriented service. It also provides a science-orientated internet channel:
Deutschlandfunk Nova.
ARD's best-known radio station outside Germany is Deutsche Welle, which broadcasts its radio services around the world in many languages, mostly on analogue shortwave radio, online, and FM partner stations. Deutsche Welle has no FM distribution in Germany.
"Archivradio" is an ARD internet radio station that streams raw audio from German sound archives, mainly the ARD radio archives and the DRA. The program is accompanied by a web portal run by the ARD-member SWR, with background information on the original sounds aired.

Television

The main television channels of the ARD are the nationwide Das Erste and seven regional channels operated by the different regional broadcasting institutions. These channels were available on the analogue terrestrial transmitters until the shutdown of the analogue transmitters started in 2003. Das Erste and the third programmes, like the radio stations, are principally funded by licence fees, with a very limited amount of on-air advertising.
Das Erste broadcasts nationwide 24 hours a day. However, the schedule does include four and a half hours of joint programming with ZDF each weekday, in the form of the news programmes Morgenmagazin and Mittagsmagazin, which the two organizations take weekly turns to produce.
Audience share :12.5%, from 14 to 49 years 6.9%.
The regional members of ARD all, jointly or separately, operate their own regional channels, known collectively as die Dritten – before recent rebranding, most of these stations had names like West 3 and Hessen 3. The schedules of these regional channels also include sub-regional opt-outs at certain times, in particular for local news.
ARD has three additional channels as part of their ARD Digital package:
ARD is also involved in several joint venture channels:
  • 3sat with ZDF, ORF and SRG: a cultural channel
  • KI.KA with ZDF: a children's channel
  • Arte with ZDF and France Télévisions: a Franco-German cultural channel
  • Phoenix with ZDF: a news and documentary channel, focussed on showing press conferences and political debates in the German parliament live, in addition to historical and political features.
The international broadcaster Deutsche Welle also produces television services; however, these services are mostly available via satellite.

Podcasts

The Tagesschau, produced by the ARD on a nightly basis, is available on the ARD website as a podcast. Other audio programs from the ARD's members and Deutsche Welle are available as podcasts, through their respective websites.

Institutions and member organizations

ARD has 30 correspondents' offices in 26 countries.
ARD operates several other companies and institutions, sometimes jointly with ZDF: Degeto Film, a television rights trader and production company; the German Broadcasting Archive ; the Institute for Broadcasting Technology, responsible for research and development; the Fee Collection Service (Beitragsservice), and others.
ARD is a supporter of the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV initiative that is promoting and establishing an open European standard for hybrid set-top boxes for the reception of broadcast TV and broadband multimedia applications with a single user interface.

Correspondents

Europe

The radio studio in Strasbourg, which was closed in July 2010 and previously operated by SWR, was responsible for the European Parliament. Since then, reporting has been carried out from Brussels and Paris.
The ARD radio studio in Zurich was closed in August 2021. Since then, reporting has been carried out from Geneva.

Americas

The ARD radio studio in Buenos Aires was closed in 2022. Since then, reporting has been carried out from Rio de Janeiro.

Africa and Middle East

The studio for Turkey and Iran is in Istanbul, see above. The ARD radio studio in Amman was closed in 2013. It only has a branch office in Cairo, from where reporting has been carried out ever since.

Criticism

Neutrality

After the ARD withdrew material critical of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a journalist from the magazine Der Spiegel compared this behaviour in an opinion article to the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. To get rid of the "annoying image of state radio", the journalist recommends it would certainly be helpful to keep more distance from the government.

Framing manual

Claudia Schwartz from the Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported in February 2019 the ARD wanted to impress upon its audience certain moral views. A manual from the "Berkeley International Framing Institute" was used internally in order to make ARD viewers consider their fees less as a compulsory contribution than as a kind of donation to a good cause.
But the website Netzpolitik.org, came to the conclusion that "Many of the proposed frames, which are currently heating the minds of many critics, have never been used in public by the public broadcasters representatives. This also shows that the excitement about the report is too high."