According to Yvette Gerner, director of Radio Bremen, a possible merger with another ARD broadcaster "makes neither economic nor programming sense". Some would even become more expensive because Radio Bremen produces cheaply, she says. In connection with the structural reform of public service broadcasting, a possible merger of Radio Bremen and Saarländischer Rundfunk with other broadcasters has been discussed in ARD and also in media policy. Yvette Gerner sees it quite differently: With its lean structure and economical production methods, her station is "a model for the future" for ARD.
Austerity measures in broadcasting
Radio Bremen, for example, produces the cheapest radio minute on ARD. In addition, they cooperate with the NDR and rely on shared services. It does not have its own purchasing department, audit or contribution department. Parts of the training and broadcasting technology would also come from the neighbouring station. Saving is everyday business at Radio Bremen, you constantly weigh up what you can afford. Savings could also affect the program, as an unproduced "crime scene" shows. According to the director, there would be "no real merger return in it" with a merger. However, Yvette Gerner cannot or does not want to answer the question of concrete savings through a merger. Such figures are available neither to the KEF Fee Commission nor to the State Court of Auditors, as the demand of the F.A.Z. shows.
Gerner points out that the smallest ARD institution went through a radical cost-cutting process at the beginning of the millennium. In 1999, the Minister-Presidents' Conference decided to halve the ARD's internal financial equalization. The station had to make do with a third less money, massively reduce staff, outsource business areas from production and technology to administrative tasks and reduce programming. The number of permanent employees fell from 600 in 1999 to 228 in 2021. In the meantime, the financial equalisation has been slightly increased again. The Radio Bremen boss denies that the financial equalization is a pittance. The broadcasting fee serves to finance the "overall event" of public service broadcasting. It prevents under- and overfunding within the ARD and thus secures the constitutionally guaranteed financing of all broadcasters.
Regional as a recipe for success
With revenues and expenditures of around 120 million euros for 2023, Radio Bremen has a balanced budget, which is rather the exception in the ARD. After the ARD subsidies flowed more sparsely, the station concentrated mainly on its regional information offering. "buten un binnen" has been ARD's most successful regional magazine for three years, says Gerner, and there are "buten un binnen" news online and on the radio. In addition, "3nach9" will be produced for the Third Programme. In addition, there are successful radio services such as Bremen Next as the youngest radio wave in Germany and supplies for Das Erste, funk, Arte, the Mediathek and Audiothek, for tagesschau24, sportschau.de and the children's channel KiKa.
The director avoids the question of whether a separate station is needed for this manageable offer and refers to the regional and journalistic competence that Radio Bremen has at its disposal. With the intensive local reporting, the station is certainly on a collision course with the newspapers in Bremen, which fear for their existence.
With a variety of regional offers, the ARD has a unique selling point, says Gerner. The state broadcasters are a regional anchor for the people and democracy. If media use increasingly shifts to the Internet, this means for public service broadcasting to bring this unique selling point into the platform world. He must take up the topics on the ground even more strongly and at the same time classify the global issues regionally, linear and non-linear, in order to offer a platform for democratic exchange of opinions.
Yvette Gerner uses examples to prove that austerity also leads to innovation. These included the first "Tatort" offshoot for the ARD media library, the "Rabiat" documentaries or the funk format "Wumms" with 950,000 subscribers on Youtube and 582,000 followers on Tiktok. In addition, the "Digital Garage" has its own department, which supports this process and drives it forward with its own projects.