Archive notice: This article was originally published on June 23, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
For the 2007 financial year, expenses amounted to €1.070 billion and income to €1.149 billion. SWR director Peter Boudgoust said: “Although we achieved a pleasing overall result for 2007, some dark clouds are gathering on the horizon.
In future, we must expect noticeable declines in licence-fee income and advertising revenue.” Boudgoust also noted that the fees first levied in 2007 for “new types of receivers,” such as PCs, amounted to just €0.8 million. This was far less than the figures previously circulated in the media.
Overall, SWR, like ARD as a whole, would have to expect revenue to decline in real terms in the future. Boudgoust said: “SWR’s financial situation will therefore remain strained, and the technical and programming challenges associated with digitisation will continue to increase.”
The Administrative Council had already approved the annual financial statements in Heidelberg on June 9, 2008. At the Broadcasting Council meeting in Mainz, Administrative Council chairman Ulrich Müller said that the 2007 financial result could not be assessed solely on the basis of the annual surplus. Müller said: “The 2007 annual financial statements show that cost awareness and entrepreneurial action are at home in every area of the organisation. SWR has made good use of the ten years since the merger. The opportunities to dismantle duplicate structures and increase productivity have been seized. The €150 million savings package in the current licence-fee period has kept SWR fit. SWR can be proud of these self-generated successes. Especially now, it is important that the gains from the merger remain permanently in the region, namely Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate.” Müller added that SWR was increasingly succeeding in the balancing act of operating as economically as a company while simultaneously fulfilling a high-quality public-service programming mandate.
