Page 111 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

100 COMMUNICATION AND CITIZENSHIP

As long as there are less than three private nationwide radio or
television channels, pluralism can only be guaranteed by general
interest channels. To this end, the regulators in each Land have to
ensure that diverse interests are represented within the broadcasting
organization itself. They may, for example, require the broadcaster to
establish a pluralist internal programming council ‘with an effective
influence upon programming’. No such provision need be made if the
broadcaster is a joint enterprise of several interests none of which has
more than half the capital and voting rights. The regulatory authority
should also attempt to have programme providers with an explicitly
cultural remit included in any joint enterprise, although this clause is
not legally enforceable.
Thus the provisions of the Treaty permeate the ideology of pluralism
in private broadcasting which is intended for the whole of the FRG. Its
application is limited, however. The Treaty only lays down minimum
requirements, which may be increased by the Land granting the original
licence or franchise on the basis of which the broadcasts can be
redistributed, by cable or satellite, over the whole country. Even a
German DBS broadcaster needs a licence from at least one Land, and
since cable penetration is very slow, the present privately owned
national television broadcasters rely heavily on low-power terrestrial
television channels to reach their audiences. Terrestrial frequencies are
considered to be a means of Land-wide distribution and are therefore
exclusively covered by Land rules. Once the Inter-Land Treaty had
been signed, however, most of the relevant parts of the Länder
legislation were homogenized to avoid private national broadcasters
flocking to the Land with the lowest requirements. The Treaty therefore
established a common base from which to analyse any significantly
different regulations in individual Länder.

THE PUBLIC BROADCASTING
CORPORATIONS

Control structure
The legislation establishing the ARD corporations and ZDF specifies
that they are to be non-profit institutions incorporated under public law.
They are to be self-governing and autonomous, especially in
programme matters. Although subject to formal legal supervision by the