Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 10, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
ZDF Director-General Markus Schächter has emphatically rejected the accusation of a “breach of promise” in connection with the broadcaster’s online expenditure. The false impression conveyed to the public had arisen because the Commission for Determining the Financial Requirements of Broadcasters (KEF) had based its latest calculations on a “new and changed methodology”. Schächter: “ZDF has strictly complied with the limit to which it committed itself.” Nor could the fact that KEF had subsequently changed the basis of the agreement alter that.
In a letter to the ZDF Television Council, which is also available to the ZDF Administrative Council, Schächter explained the bases of calculation which, with the knowledge of the Broadcasting Commission of the Länder and KEF, had been the benchmark for determining online costs in recent years. From the outset, KEF itself had not accepted technical distribution costs as part of the online project registration. “On this basis, which corresponds to the distinction between programme costs and distribution costs in the television sector, ZDF made its declaration of self-commitment,” the ZDF Director-General explained to the Television Council.
Right at the beginning of the discussion about limiting the online expenditure of public-service broadcasters, ZDF had commented in detail on the recommendations of the Broadcasting Commission in 2004. It states verbatim: “On the premise that online expenditure will continue to be calculated according to the current methodology of KEF registrations in future, ZDF is prepared to agree to a limit on expenditure for online offerings of 0.75 percent of the institution’s budget.” This had also been incorporated – with the knowledge of the Länder – into ZDF’s declaration of self-commitment.
If KEF now based the draft of its new report on a different calculation methodology, it was abandoning the basis of the agreement that had been coordinated among all those involved, including the Länder, in recent years. Schächter: “The KEF draft report does not correspond to the agreements. There can be no question whatsoever of a breach of promise.”
