Dhe ARD chairman Tom Buhrow has rejected the criticism of the Broadcasting Commission that the broadcasting association is not taking the necessary steps in terms of transparency, compliance and strengthening the supervisory bodies. The broadcaster bosses of the ARD have already introduced extensive reforms and are driving them forward quickly, the ARD said at the request of the FAZ. “We are standardizing the compliance standards across ARD based on the high IDW testing standard, developing initial concepts for even more cooperation in programming, administration and production by April and creating maximum transparency.
We announced all of this in the summer and made a concrete decision in November – and informed the Broadcasting Commission in writing immediately afterwards. So we are constantly reforming ARD and will continue to work on it consistently. To this end, we are also in constructive exchange with our supervisor.”
“Significant decisions” at RBB
Independent investigations are being carried out at Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, according to ARD, and the new broadcaster has “made some significant and tough decisions in just a few weeks”. Also in terms of journalism, “the events of this year have been extensively processed and transparently presented to the outside world”. ARD has been publishing transparency information on ard.de for years, in addition to the information on the websites of the individual state broadcasters. In addition to the remuneration of the directors and directors, regulations on pensions and the salary structure for non-tariff employees should also be presented there in the coming year.
This is exactly what the Broadcasting Commission is demanding and explicitly writes this in an addendum to the most recent State Treaty on Media Amendments. The federal states oblige the public service broadcasters to publish their organizational structure, including the composition of the bodies and their committees, statutes, guidelines, rules of procedure and other information that is of essential importance for the respective broadcaster, on the Internet in future. Information should be provided about the remuneration of the directors and directors, but also about expense allowances, attendance fees, other monetary benefits, fees for activities at subsidiaries and associated companies and benefits upon termination of the activity.
A large part of this kind of information is indeed already available on the broadcasters’ websites, but not everything, such as fees for secondary employment and “pensions” such as those paid by Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg in particular to top employees who have left and continue to be paid. These are sometimes large sums that are paid for the period after the end of a contract and before retirement age.
