At that point, why don’t they just have the government fund the television networks from tax revenue rather than effectively levying a poll tax earmarked for broadcasters?
It's not good for the government to have too much direct control over state media. They executive branch should not be able to change the budget from year to year on their own, since they can "punish" state media if they don't say things the government likes. Using tax revenue would generally give the executive branch power to set or at least propose the budget.
When Norway recently moved to tax funding state media, I think they solved this by making it a completely separate dedicated tax. At least that's what was discussed, not sure about the details of the final implementation. So it can only be changed by a vote in parliament, which is more visible to the public, can take more time, and requires a majority of parties to agree on that specific change.
Any payment the government forces you to make is a tax, in my opinion. And I see no difference in the “government” forcing you to pay a TV license versus bundling it in tax revenue. As you wrote, the same government can just preclude that amount of tax revenue from being altered by the “executive branch”, if that is the goal.
But otherwise, the “government” can always alter the tv license fee, or the tax. It’s always under their control, and changing its label doesn’t do anything.
I really don’t see how one has anything to do with the other. In the US, PBS and NPR are funded through the general fund and they still have editorial independence. But maybe that’s because the US system has a stronger separation of the legislative and executive branches.
In Germany, the budget for public broadcasting is decided by a somewhat independent commission. Sounds good in theory, but after a few decades, public broadcasters now have a budget of more than 8 billion € per year. This is more than the revenue of all private TV stations combined.
As written down below: to prevent the government from controlling the public television which they easily could if that fee was just another expense in the yearly tax spending budget.
Norway recently switched from a system where you paid a set fee if you owned a TV to a system where you pay based on your income and it's part of your tax form. The reasoning behind the change was that basically everyone either has a TV or internet, and since the channels are available online, everyone has access.
Lines are blurry in Germany sometimes, sure. But outlets like the ARD, and a lesser extent ZDF (there are some legal differences between the two, including independance) are way more neutral regarding the ruling, or major, parties like, say, Fox News and the GOP. And they have been, regardless of government coalition. They still are as far as their pure news formats are concerned, much mre "just the facts" then anything else I ever saw in the US. Their more "opinion" heavy pieces are different, but still are far cry from opinion pieces in the US, e.g. Hannity or O'Donnel. And that by itself is a good thing.
Austrians public broadcasters, the ORF, are way better than that even. They mutineed against the attempt to install pulitical operatives at the head of the organisation. They even end interviews with gvernment secretaries if they don't get strsaight answers.
> ARD, and a lesser extent ZDF (there are some legal differences between the two, including independance) are way more neutral regarding the ruling, or major, parties like, say, Fox News and the GOP.
I could have used MSNBC and the Democrats. They have George W's former press secretary with her own show, so I'd say they are biased against the current GOP, less so against conservatives.
As far media and press is concerned, fact based and neutral is the strongest endorsement I can think of.
The german state TV is independent, neutral and does very good journalistic job. I don't know how on earth they could be criticised to be a propaganda outlet for the state. I personally know someone who works for the journalistic side of the state TV and I can assure you that he has all the journalistic freedom he needs.
That being said, i fell like the state TV is the opposite. Only neutral news, facts without much of an opinion. For me it's not enough to follow the news since I can't be an expert in everything. I need voices from a certain my political spectrum that write what they feel about laws and processes. Environmental activists commenting environmental laws etc. Thats why I read the newspaper additionally. It's certainly not unbiased, but still independent.
The lines are blurry, but we can see different cases.
A notable case in 2009 was the contract as Editor in Chief of Nikolaus Beendet, which wasn't extended since Roland Koch didn't want to and went up to the Constitutional Court, which ruled that there was too much political influence at ZDF, leading to changed oversight, which still is close.
TlRecent case is the "coalition crisis" in Saxony-Anhalt, where the parliament blocked the new rates.
But it's complicated as bodies need some form of democratic legitimation and with the "Sozialwahl" we have one failing experiment of doing extra elections, aside from parliament elections ... where nobody knows who the candidates are and what they do ...
Thanks for the edit. In Germany, the means are to put people leaning to certain parties in top positions. Or people with the right connections. As a result, the bavarian contribution, the BR, is not necessarly known for its liberal agenda. Others are more left leaning.
One other way is to have former press and spokes persons from a government taking up positions at the braodcasters. When the current (?) spokesman of Angela Merkal left as a news presenter from the ARD (or ZDF, to lazy to loo it up...),that was regarded as a braek from customs and more or less a no-no affecting the independance of these broadcasters.
TL;DR: Political parties, and not so much the "government", use soft power to influence these briadcasters. Quite often by having certain people selected for certain jobs.
No, if anything I'd say even less. Private broadcasting can be influenced by add customers, politics and so on. Public briadcasting more or less only by soft political influence. Which tends to balance itself out between parties anyway. So if anything, basic bias tends to be the best reflection of the current center I can think of.
Because the government is the one who gave them the authority to levy the fees from you and the people running the public broadcasters are all directly or indirectly politically connected to the major parties.
Which other independent private business can just straight up charge you without you signing up for their service beforehand?
In Germany and I guess, in most countries, the public broadcasters are basically low-key propaganda arms of the government. The whole separate tax thing is a intermediate smokescreen to give the public the illusion of independence.
It's not just any private business. Compare with social insurance fees that must also be paid, it is not something you can opt out of while being part of the society. The fact that it is not a state owned organization is a feature, not a bug.
In Germany specifically it is not a revolving door between public broadcasting and politics, and there is clearly journalistic pride in taking down corrupt politicians, so while it is always good to be suspicious of media calling it a propaganda arm is overstating it. Media isn't always neutral but privately financed isn't more neutral than others.
You're contradicting yourself. You say it's good that the TV tax is levied by the government like social insurance fees but instead of it going directly to the government like social insurance fees, it goes to an "independent" organization and that's the "feature"? LOL, what?!
Do you really think that money is no strings attached?
Ideally it would be and I guess that's the idea on paper but in practice, the public broadcasters almost never criticize the ruling coalition on the "don't bite the hand that feeds you" rule.
IIRC during the 2015 migrant crisis, no public debate was allowed on public TV over the decisions made to open the borders and the only opinion allowed on TV was that "it's good for everyone" with any argument against mass immigration (not immigrants themselves) heavily verboten.
Democracy requires an informed electorate and publicly funded broadcasters are a means to achieve that. The government must have as little control as possible over their funding to ensure their journalistic independence.
That's the guiding theory at resulted in most European countries having some variation of a public broadcaster funded by TV (formally radio) licences.
There are many implementation differences between countries and none of them are perfect but I would argue that those I'm familiar with serve their purpose.
Yes, that is indeed how things work. It is not part of the budget and the ruling coalition has no mandate to bargain with it. I believe most European countries have similar checks and balances in place. I do not understand what the contradiction is, but if there is one it must be widespread.
We pay for many things we can not use, roads where we don't live, schools we can not attend and health care for the opposite sex. That does not mean public funding is good in itself, only that the grey area between what is public and what is private is large and politicized and settled over time. I disagree with many of them but that is no reason to get counterfactual.
There was a loud public debate about the migration crisis, both at the time and for a long time afterwards. It is important to recognize these things even if we don't personally agree with the outcome. That's part of living in a democracy.
That's entirely dependent on the country and political culture. At the very least I can guaranty that in Britain, France and Germany public networks and new agencies are far more neutral and independent than private ones. And that's a result of political parties being unable to co-opt the administrative machinery of the government system. So they end up co-opting businessmen, who themselves control private media for influence.
In a well designed democracy nobody is strong enough for long enough to take over public media, the school system, the judiciary, the army etc.
That money has no strings attached, unless the amunt is about to be changed. An changes to the fee have to be agreed upon by both chambers, Bundestag and Bundesrat. The Bundesat, representing the individual states, means state parliaments have to agree first. That's the reason why the last fee increase fell through after one state feared backlash from the AfD leaning members of the CDU (Merkals party) and voted against it.
Once the fee is agreed upon, it cannot be changed either way with out every parliamnt agreeing to do so. The money cannot be held back by te "government" (we have coalitions, and those change regularly every 10 years or so). Neither can it be held back for state broadcasters (third programms) by the local governments or parliaments. Sounds pretty tempering free to me.
And the debate did happen in 2015, or didn't you see the same panel discussions I saw? It also happened in print and the public broacasters reported aboutthat debate in their news segments. The nature of these news segments being to report facts and not to debate.
It just turned out that only one party really opposed the opening of boarders, along with the right wings of the cnservative parties CDU and CSU. Thos are not the majority but rather a very very loud minority.
> An changes to the fee have to be agreed upon by both chambers, Bundestag and Bundesrat.
The federal government, and thus Bundestag and Bundesrat, have no say in the funding or operation of Germany's public broadcasters. The exception being Deutsche Welle which is not available in Germany and has an "external" audience.
The funding on operation of public broadcasters is instead determined by a compact between the 16 states.
Ah thanks for the clarification! I always had the impression it was the Bundesrat\Tag. The compact things confused me. But that makes this whole thing even more robust it seems.
The public broadcasters in Germany aren't propaganda arms of the government and are generally respected across political affiliation, except perhaps by the sort of folks that think AfD has the right approach. They may exhibit some editorial lean (https://www.dw.com/en/a-dual-broadcasting-system/a-435426), but from everything I've seen not even to the level that folks in the US complain about CNBC or Fox News.
Germany, in fact, comes in with one of the highest press freedom scores from Reporters without Borders:
National public Radio and the Public Broadcast Company in the US, in further illustration, hasn't been Donald Trump's megaphone.
Just generally, independent journalism is important and can be subverted whether the sources are public or private. Open pluralistic oversight is most important to maintaining balance and Germany seems to get it right, while also making sure the media can be accessible to any resident.
Seems a not-awful approach to trying to ensure a more-educated population, which is also good for a democracy.
> except perhaps by the sort of folks that think AfD has the right approach
Ah right, everyone that disagrees must be one of those people so their opinion doesn't matter.
> They may exhibit some editorial lean
More than "some".
> CNBC or Fox News
Those are corporations that noone is not forced to fund if you disagree with them.
> Just generally, independent journalism is important
Except you can't give certain organizations a unique monopoly to collect fees from everyone and then call it independent with a straight face.
Also, journalism is only a tiny part of german public TV channels. They also throw tons of money on sports broadcasting and game shows while promoting gambling. Add to that the insanity of having a local channel for every state. Even if you agree that public funded news is a good thing, the current setup is hardly an efficient way to accomplish that.
> Seems a not-awful approach to trying to ensure a more-educated population, which is also good for a democracy.
You can call it "education" if you want.
Finally, unlike taxes, the TV fee is not means tested in Germany meaning that if you have a low income and don't fall into the few groups that are excempt then it is a very real burden.
> Ah right, everyone that disagrees must be one of those people so their opinion doesn't matter.
> More than "some".
This sounds like disgruntled opinion over having to pay 18 EUR/month for something you don't watch.
Please feel free to put something more substantial behind your snappy retorts. The studies and research I've read indicates that the people mostly trust and appreciate the balance in German public broadcasting, and most disgruntled with public broadcasting in Germany are on the radical sides. The second bit is more universally supported by psychological research indicating that the average person wants to watch stuff that confirms their biases.
> Except you can't give certain organizations a unique monopoly to collect fees from everyone and then call it independent with a straight face.
You're perverting the meaning of monopoly here, I think. There's a publicly funded infrastructure for broadcast programming, as well as privately funded sources of programming. ZDF and ARD don't have exclusive right to broadcast in any market in Germany as far as I know?
The publicly funded infrastructure includes representative oversight mechanisms from political and community sources, which provide a far more robust mechanism for neutrality checking vs the programming decisions of a profit-motivated private organization.
> Finally, unlike taxes
Means testing is a fantastic point, I whole-heartedly agree that statutory funding structures like this shouldn't overburden any slice of the population.
>In Germany and I guess, in most countries, the public broadcasters are basically low-key propaganda arms of the government. The whole separate tax thing is a intermediate smokescreen to give the public the illusion of independence.
This claim elides the difference between e.g. the BBC or Deutsche Welle and RT. It would be naive to think that the BBC is wholly independent of politicians. But it would be equally naive to think that they're no better than a state propaganda outlet.
I can't speak to Germany, but I view the BBC as the voice of the Establishment. That's a subtly different thing from being the voice of the government of the day. That's why they look right-biased if you're looking at their news output, and left-biased if you're looking at their drama/comedy output: they're just reflecting the Established status quo.
Because the broadcasters need politicians and courts to confirm that the TV protection money is constitutional.
It is protection money: You haven't ordered any service and if you don't pay they'll make you pay and ruin your credit score in the process.
In the collection process they pretend to be a government institution to avoid going through local courts, which sometimes are against them.
EDIT: Also, I'm beginning to wonder why any criticism of the German government or especially state TV is being downvoted here. Civil servants have a lot of time ...
I think it is downvoted because it ignores the complete historical context of this system. It was put in place after WW2, and with a lot of things implemented in the German Verfassung, it drew curcial lessons from the Nazis rise to power and their way of ruling.
Broadcasting, as opposed to the 100% Nazi party controll of media before, was thus setup to be independetly funded and run. The ZDF, if memory serves well, is allowed to be more of a government policy outlet than the ARD and the third programms. The goal is to prevent media to become government controlled, with the added benefit of being independent from add revenue. And that principal is still pretty solid.
> The ZDF, if memory serves well, is allowed to be more of a government policy outlet than the ARD and the third programms.
This was the original intent: Adenauer wanted a federal public broadcaster to compete with ARD which he considered too critical of his government. The constitutional court shut that down as only the states have the right to set up public broadcasters with domestic transmissions (Deutsche Welle is focused externally). Today ZDF and ARD have the same legal framework, they are just organized differently.
The arguments you make are orthogonal to the discussion whether TV fees should be protection money or based on actual TV ownership.
The latter has been the status quo in Germany for the better part of time since WW2, and arguably people were less radicalized on both sides of the political spectrum than now.
It is when institutions get overtly greedy that people start to complain.
In the UK I'd say the answer is probably that you can't as easily divert funds to a private Tory owned business by simply adding TV licence costs to taxes.
IIRC it's Capita who collect the money and keep a remarkably high proportion of it. They're also employing people to lie and intimidate to try and get access to homes.
Sweden made the switch in 2019 I believe. It was the availability of computers and streaming that forced them to change things. Since people with computers could now watch the programming everything became more complicated.
