Culture beats repeats: put more artists on TV to fill extra airtime in #Corona-shutdown

29.04.2020 22:34

Das Interview des ARD-Programmdirektors Volker Herres mit der Neuen Osnabrücker Zeitung am 26.4.2020 liefert neue Erkenntnisse und Daten, um Argumentation und Forderungen konkreter und stichhaltiger zu machen. Es gibt uns einen klaren Anhaltspunkt, Zeit zu fordern, die aufgrund abgesagter Großevents eh frei wird. Und als zahlende Kunden Qualitätsprogramm zu erwarten, statt Wiederholungen. Aus diesem Grund haben wir den Text noch einmal leicht umformuliert.


Neuer Titel: #Corona shuts down stages? Put #Corona-shutdown: put more non-mainstream culture artists on TV!
TV to fill program gaps. Culture beats repeats!


Neuer Petitionstext: **Corona has closed our stages indefinitely. Artists need stages. We need art. Culture lies idle indefinitely. As a result, artists and cultural workers, their audience and we as a society will suffer lasting damage.**
Television is a stage and is still working despite Corona. We finance **Public television with has a mandate to promote national artists* and will face *"large gaps in its programme well into the coming year", as ARD programme director Volker Herres told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung on Sunday, 26.4. The cancellation of the European Football Championship and the Olympic Games alone frees up 220 hours of airtime.** [1]
How are these failures to be compensated for in times of Corona-driven shooting stops? Instead of new productions and live transmissions, will our broadcasting fees. Therefore, fees buy pure repeats throughout the entire summer? When we should be able can neither travel, nor got to watch what we want to see. At the same extra airtime has become available due to Corona driven shooting stops and event cancellations.**
**The perfect solution: let's get more artists on TV - not just the established names, but the whole range of their diversity. We need prime time for culture!**
concerts, stadiums or festivals?
Dear Prof. Grütters,
Mr. Buhrow,
and Dr. Bellut,
the diversity instead of our creative and a summer of repeats, let’s make it a summer of culture - a cultural landscape will suffer lasting damage as a result “Sommermärchen” 2020!
**We demand that at least 30% of the Corona-related ban on almost any event for an indefinite time.
**This affects us all:**
- **Artists** and **members of the industry**, many of whom fear for their livelihoods
- The **audience** and all for whom participation in culture is a life elixir
- **Us as a society** that becomes more colourful and reflected thanks to its rich cultural landscape
We must keep culture alive - through the crisis and beyond the crisis! On the one hand, this requires financial support to compensate for cancellations and the lack of income. But as **stages are expected to remain closed for an extended time period**, we as a society must enable as many artists and cultural workers as possible to pursue their professions in spite of it. In other words: **we need solutions how to let culture take place even in times of Corona.**
The first reflex to do so is online culture and in recent weeks an impressive number of initiatives have emerged to bring artists on the internet. But television has been left behind - our largest virtual stage and financed to a large extent by society (through compulsory broadcasting contributions by each household). At the same time, extra airtime has become available due to Corona Corona-related cancellations and shooting stops, which now needs to should be filled with new content.
Is there a better time to take the cultural mission of public broadcasting particularly seriously?
**To preserve our diverse cultural landscape in the absence of physical stages, we need more broadcasting time used for current art and culture on public television!** culture. On the **main channels**, main channels,** not just the niche channels ARTE and 3SAT or digital media libraries like ZDFkultur and ARTE Concert. **At the heart of the programme**, programme, not at off-peak times.
**Our proposition:**
times:
- **At At least 1 hour broadcasting time per day on Das Erste or ZDF, on weekdays between 6-11pm, on weekends also during the day**
day
- **At At least 1 hour broadcasting time per day on regional channels for the specific support of artists and ensembles from the region**
region
The content of the airtime can be high-quality existing material (recordings of concerts and performances, self-produced videos) as well as live studio performances and integration of the latter into existing formats - in accordance with current contact regulations.
**The opening of this media stage must be aimed particularly at those who are most affected by the current restrictions: freelance performing artists as they need a stage to live and cannot rely upon a publicly funded salary. salary.** Musicians of all genres, theatre actors and dancers on independent stages, stand-up comedians, poetry slammers, rappers, singer-songwriters and many more. It **It is therefore **essential essential to not only display the ‘high culture’ of the big houses and the known names of the scene, but to especially support subcultures, regional newcomers from the national pop- and subcultures.**
Paths in the cultural sector have become increasingly difficult in recent years. Since the disappearance of outlets such as Viva and MTV the media space for culture shifts further and further into the internet. Despite the undeniable advantages and possibilities of streaming services such as Youtube, Spotify, Netflix and many others - which have become all the more obvious in recent weeks - the sovereignty over the development of new artists moves more and ensembles of independent private stages. It is precisely these artists that make us more colourful and are currently facing very difficult times with uncertain outcomes.**
The **content into the hands of the airtime** can be **high-quality existing material** (recordings private sector.
**We need to take the cultural mandate of concerts and performances, self-produced videos) as well as **live studio performances and integration public broadcasting seriously again! This has already been the case before Corona hit the scene. Because of the latter into existing formats** - in accordance with current contact regulations. Artists and other representatives of the industry will certainly be happy to contribute with own material and creative ideas how to best bring their art to the media stage. You might thereby even receive suggestions and ideas for other programme sections.
Television broadcasters have the platforms, the professional technology and the reach to make the performing arts accessible to a wide audience at a high quality. And the public, which until recently filled theatres, concert halls, opera houses, galleries, cabaret stages, music bars and clubs, Corona, it is now yearning for cultural stimulation within their homes. Just as all creative artists long to play for their audience. **The only thing missing is the broadcasting high time!**


Neue Begründung: The **cultural cultural mission of German public media is legally enshrined** enshrined in the Federal Broadcasting Treaty (Rundfunkstaatsvertrag, RStV). § 11 Section 1 of this treaty states an explicit obligation to “particularly offer contributions on culture”. [1]
This includes both the reporting on cultural events and a mandate for cultural sponsorship, i.e. to create cultural events themselves. In doing so, the entire spectrum of cultural diversity must be reflected. [2]
reflected.[2]
According to the latest figures from the Cologne Institute for Empirical Media Research (IFEM) for 2016-2018, the share of “Culture & Religion” in the content profile of Das Erste was 2.4-2.8%; that of ZDF 2.7-2.8%. By way of comparison: Sports most recently comprised 8.4% (Erste)/6.9% (ZDF), everyday/social affairs 6.8%(Erste)/15.0%(ZDF), fiction 35.4% (Erste)/36.4% (ZDF), and of these alone, thrillers/crime shows 10.8% (Erste)/24.2% (ZDF).[3]
As announced by the Federal Government we will have to cope with restrictions in public life for some time to come. When stages will be allowed to reopen is therefore marked with a big question mark. **Formats Formats developed to date for "Culture in Times of Corona" - much of which is only available in the media library, not broadcast on TV - focus again on the established names and genres.** What genres.
Television broadcasters have the platforms, the professional technology and the reach to make the performing arts accessible to a wide audience at a high quality. And the public, which until recently filled theatres, concert halls, opera houses, galleries, cabaret stages, music bars and clubs, is shown now yearning for cultural stimulation within their homes. Just as all creative artists long to play for their audience.
**Is there is only a tiny fragment of what the German and European better time for our very own cultural scene has to offer. What we need now is not extended airtime for the well-known, but rather a broadening of the fragment.
Our artistic, cultural wealth is one of the things that make us a society. We cannot and will not do without it, not now and not in the future. A performing artist who cannot play in front of an audience loses more than financial income. He loses his livelihood, inspiration and energy.
**Please help to put more artists on stage despite Corona! And, by the way, as we television viewers enjoy varied entertainment in our homes, you as broadcasters profit from creative new impulses - in other words, a classic win-win situation.**
“Sommermärchen”?**
*Sources:*
[1] [1] Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, „ARD-Programmdirektor Herres: Wegen Corona-Krise "große Lücken" im TV-Programm“, 26. April 2020, www.presseportal.de/pm/58964/4581105
[2] die medienanstalten, „Staatsvertrag für Rundfunk und Telemedien (Rundfunkstaatsvertrag – RStV), version 22. Rundfunkänderungsstaatsvertrag, in effect since 1. May 2019.(www.die-medienanstalten.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Rechtsgrundlagen/Gesetze_Staatsvertraege/Rundfunkstaatsvertrag_RStV.pdf)
[2] [3] Wissenschaftliche Dienste des deutschen Bundetages, „Der Kultur- und Bildungsauftrag der öffentlich-rechtlichen und privaten Rundfunkanstalten“, Ausarbeitung WD 10-051/06.
[3] [4] Krüger, Udo Michael, „Profile deutscher Fernsehprogramme 2018 – Tendenzen der Angebotsentwicklung zur Gesamt- und Hauptsendezeit“. In: Media Perspektiven 4/2019, Editor: Institut für empirische Medienforschung (IFEM), Cologne. (www.ard-werbung.de/fileadmin/user_upload/media-perspektiven/pdf/2019/0419_Krueger_2019-05-09.pdf

Unterschriften zum Zeitpunkt der Änderung: 71