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64 | THE PROFESSIONALISM OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION

Public broadcasting had a monopoly until 1984, when it had to face fierce competition
as private channels appeared on the scene. Due to the size of the population and the
potential of the advertising sector, Germany has become one of the most competitive
broadcasting markets in Western Europe. The average television household,
independent of technical equipment, today receives 38 channels. Therefore, audience
fragmentation is a characteristic of the German television market. The most popular
channel, which in 2003 was the commercial station RTL, has an average market share of
less than 16%. However, the public television stations altogether still reach more than
40% of the market.The competitive environment has drawn public television, although
conceived of as being independent of economic reasoning, into the commercialisation
process. This gave rise to the convergence hypothesis that predicted an increasing
similarity of content,whichever the direction of assimilation.

Results from several studies show that differences still exist in the way public and
commercial television present politics. Commercial channels tend to present political
matters to a greater extent as ‘infotainment’, packaging the political subjects in an
entertaining manner. Findings, meanwhile, also indicate a turn in German public
television towards ‘infotainment’. Differences are still apparent for the structure of
actors. Political actors have a better chance of appearing on the public programmes,
while private actors are seen more frequently on commercial programmes. Not
surprisingly, there is also a contrast between both systems according to the issue’s level
of reference: Public stations prefer events and issues that affect society as a whole, or
refer to a particular level of reference, such as institutions or problems with effects for
particular groups of society. Commercial stations instead prefer to deal with issues
referring to an individual,private level (Krüger,1996; 2001; cf.also Greger,1998).

The Professionalisation of Political Communication
On the other hand, the commercial media are supposed to be more autonomous vis-à-
vis the political system. While under economic pressure, and thus more audience-
oriented, commercial broadcasting – as the private press – is less dependent on
politicians than public service broadcasting, where politicians have kept their option to
directly or indirectly influence decisions over content and personnel.

CHANGES IN THE POLITICAL SYSTEM
Until the early 1980s, politics was made by only three parties. Since Germany’s
representational electoral system usually leads to coalition governments, the small Free
Democratic Party (FDP) acted as kingmaker for either the Christian Democratic Union
(CDU/CSU) or the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and thus achieved an importance
disproportionate to its size (for a complete overview, cf. Holtz-Bacha, 2004b). The party
landscape became more competitive when the Greens entered the scene. The new
party on the left of the political spectrum made it over the 5% threshold and took seats
in the Bundestag for the first time in 1983. In the long run, this opened up the
possibility of a new coalition, particularly for the SPD. After unification and the first all-
German election in 1990, the established parties had to deal with another newcomer
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