Dhe Prime Minister of Brandenburg, Dietmar Woidke, wrote to the administrative board of Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) and asked the committee to take into account the information provided by the state audit offices of Berlin and Brandenburg when it comes to the “pending replacement” of the post as director. He would be “grateful” if this happened, writes Woidke. This is reported by the RBB and the North German Broadcasting Corporation (NDR).
Serious shortcomings
At the end of last week, the state audit offices presented their audit reports on the RBB and found “systematic deficiencies” in the broadcaster’s financial management. According to the auditors, RBB spent more money from 2017 to 2021 than it could afford. Only through the crisis plan of the acting director Katrin Vernau was a “medium-term threat of insolvency averted”.
The state audit offices also suggested that the RBB should orient itself towards the public service when it comes to paying top staff. That would mean that an intendant could get an annual salary of around 180,000 euros. The current director Vernau comes to 295,000 euros, the director Patricia Schlesinger, who was terminated without notice, had a salary of more than 350,000 euros a year.
Berlin and Brandenburg want to reform the RBB state contract
According to Woidke’s letter, from which RBB and NDR quote, Berlin and Brandenburg intend to take the proposals of the state audit offices into account when reforming the RBB state contract. The chairman of the RBB board of directors, Benjamin Ehlers, had already brought into play a limit on the director’s salary when looking for a new station manager. The candidate Jan Weyrauch, program director of Radio Bremen, had therefore temporarily withdrawn from the application process, but then returned, probably in the hope that nothing would come of the salary cap.
RBB and NDR cite Woidke’s letter, which is dated June 8th, the day on which the four candidates proposed by the selection committee presented themselves to the Broadcasting Council, as saying that the Prime Minister’s speech was scandalous.
“Instruction” to the board of directors?
The RBB broadcasting councilor Christian Goiny, media policy spokesman for the CDU parliamentary group in the Berlin House of Representatives, is quoted as saying that Woidke’s letter was “suitable for damaging confidence in the independence of public broadcasting”. Even if the letter was formulated as a “request”, it was clear that Woidke expected his request to be granted. “One can exaggerate to say that Prime Minister Woidke instructs the Board of Directors by decree on how to behave in the current election of directors. This procedure is not covered by the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty.”
According to the RBB and the NDR, Sabine Jauer, member of the search committee and chairwoman of the RBB staff council, states that she considers Woidke’s letter to be “bold” and a clear “violation of the independence of the rbb and the requirement to be remote from the state”. The deputy Berlin SPD parliamentary group leader Melanie Kühnemann-Grunow is rumored to be demanding that the “independence of the organs of the RBB” be respected at all costs. The forthcoming director election has “absolute priority”, it is important “to have no political influence”.
The RBB Broadcasting Council wants to elect a new station manager on June 16. The journalist and former government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer, the digital editor-in-chief of ARD-aktuell, Juliane Leopold, the manager Heide Baumann and the Radio Bremen program director Jan Weyrauch are up for election.
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