Page 120 - Communication and Citizenship Journalism and the Public Sphere

BEYOND BALANCED PLURALISM 109

music programmes or radio plays. Money spent on sponsoring cultural
events will also be cut back unless legislation, as in Hessen, earmarks
additional funds for this purpose. Radio drama does not feature on private
stations.
For different political motives, politicians of both main parties are
increasingly critical of public broadcasting’s practice of cutting back in
cultural programming and competing in the commercial market-place.
In television, there will be more repeats of expensive films and series;
more co-productions and less material produced by the smaller
independent German producers. Minority interest programmes and
political magazines have already been pushed from prime-time to late
evening viewing to make way for entertainment programmes. The third
programme channels, which are not allowed to take advertising, and
which were a traditional outlet for education and advisory programmes,
in-depth discussion and special movies, have gradually been
popularized. 34
Are the media politicians satisfied with the structure they have
created? Ironically, many conservative politicians, especially those who
fought to introduce private commercial broadcasting and to defeat the
alleged socialist bias in the public-service corporations, are disappointed
with the poor quality of the commercial radio and television stations.
They are particularly dismayed by the virtual disappearance of the
cultural, folkloric and educational components in their programming.
CSU voices are quoted as calling the new programming ‘boring
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drabness’. And the newly popularized public radio channels, which
have been designed for mass appeal, have also occasioned numerous
complaints. 36
Conservative media politicians have started to appreciate afresh the
value of the public-service corporations, not only as upholders of
traditional conservative values, but also as a platform for their policies;
and SPD politicians have always valued public broadcasting as part of
their social ideology. It is doubtful however, whether political
interference in programme content will continue to be so easy in future.
The need to face up to commercial competition could well force the
public corporations to assert their political independence.
At first glance, it seems that the re-regulation of West German
broadcasting has effectively secured the constitutionally required,
minimum standards of pluralism in private broadcasting and has kept
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market forces at bay. The decisions by the regulatory authorities on
the organization of the new private broadcasting market have created a