Archive notice: This article was originally published on December 11, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
“This is a piece of pioneering work to strengthen committee oversight. Following our talks with ARD, I assume that ARD will arrive at similar procedures”, ZDF Television Council chairman Ruprecht Polenz said after the meeting. The Television Council, which also monitors compliance with the provision, decides when a new or changed offering exists and must be subjected to the test.
Under the new procedure, the ZDF Director General will in future prepare a project description according to defined criteria for a new or changed offering or programme. This must make clear, firstly, that the planned offering belongs to the public service remit and contributes qualitatively to journalistic competition. Secondly, the project description contains the costs of the offering and – thirdly – an assessment of the effects on the market.
After an initial briefing of the Television Council on the key points of the new or changed offering, ZDF publishes the project description in its online offering and informs the press about it. This gives potentially affected market participants an opportunity to comment.
These are incorporated into the deliberations in the Television Council. The committee can obtain external expert opinions or hear experts for this purpose. At the end of the procedure, the project description approved by the Television Council is sent to legal supervision.
According to the wishes of the ZDF Television Council, the procedure is to be coordinated with ARD and set down in guidelines. Furthermore, an agreement is to be made with the responsible ARD committees on applying the test to the online offerings of the joint partner channels according to the so-called lead-management principle. Accordingly, the ZDF Television Council would be responsible for the online offerings of Phoenix and 3sat.
