Patricia Schlesinger, a veteran journalist, resigned from her role as head of ARD – Germany’s equivalent of the BBC – after being accused of “orgies”. The controversy has led to calls to abolish the mandatory TV license fee in Germany. According to Business Insider, Ms Schlesinger billed her employer for house parties, drove around in a €145,000 (£122,000) chauffeur-driven Audi and oversaw lucrative consultancy contracts handed over to her husband. Further claims made in top-seller Bild Zeitung listed €650,000 (£547,000) in renovations ordered by Mrs Schlesinger for her office, including Italian parquet floors and two massage chairs. The claims have angered opponents of the license fee because Ms Schlesinger was responsible for raising the price at the end of last year – insisting the broadcaster needed to cut and save to survive. Germany’s two public broadcasters, ARD and ZDF, are the best-funded in the world – with a combined annual budget of more than €8bn (£6.7bn). A household’s failure to pay the mandatory €18 (£15) license fee can lead to a prison sentence, with one man becoming a cause for detractors when he spent 101 days in jail last year.
“smear campaign”
The levy is supposed to be spent on impartial reporting and broadcasters’ budgets are, on paper, subject to strict parliamentary oversight. Ms Schlesinger, who until Sunday was the most powerful woman in German media, denied the allegations in her resignation letter, claiming she was the victim of a “smear campaign”. She also resigned from her role at Berlin broadcaster RBB, which asked a law firm to assess whether her spending was legal. Critics say, however, that the scandal is symptomatic of a wider rot at Germany’s public broadcasters, which they claim treat the German public with contempt. The recent reform of the way public broadcasters are financed in France has led to calls for similar changes in Germany. “ARD’s luxury boss symbolizes a broken system,” said Johannes Boie, editor-in-chief of Bild. “Instead of reporting neutrally, ARD treats viewers like children, glosses over inconvenient truths and is biased towards the Left.” Claiming that most Germans now reject the mandatory fee, Boie said “Germany could get by with just one public broadcaster”.
“Democratic Levy”
But supporters of the license fee refer to it as a “democracy contribution” and say it acts as a bulwark against polarization and fake news. “Bild is now beating the drum for a world without public broadcasters where it can spread its right-wing infotainment. We can look to the US to see where this ends,” Sebastian Schöbel, a journalist at ARD, tweeted. The poll shows that Germans have a high level of trust in their public broadcasters, but also don’t like being forced to pay for their content. Discussions around the amount of pay are very politically charged. The centre-right CDU was forced to divert an attempt to block an increase in the cost of the license fee last year after the other mainstream parties said the conservatives were in conflict with the right-wing AfD – which strongly rejects the license fee.