It is a paper that has it all: In a letter that is available to WELT, the left-wing faction in Saxony-Anhalt calls for a discussion about the creation of an East German broadcasting company.
The five-page “discussion offer” specifically states: “We are promoting the idea of thinking about a new East German public broadcaster for the states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Bandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania”.
The left also demands that more people from the eastern German federal states have leadership and program responsibility. In addition, joint programs and facilities and tasks should be relocated to the eastern German federal states.
You need an artistic director, a legal director and an administrative director for the six eastern German states. The salaries for artistic directors and directors are to be capped from the start.
The proposal from Saxony-Anhalt would in fact mean a merger of RBB and MDR under a new roof. According to the strategy paper, this start-up offers the chance of a fresh start with a clearly public-law profile. You would have a “real” counterweight to the currently “overweight” WDR. “The ÖRR crisis is also a crisis of acceptance, which is particularly noticeable in the East,” the letter continues.
Saxony-Anhalt is currently being shaken by its own public broadcasting scandal. After the summer break, there should even be a committee of inquiry in the state parliament. The reason is questionable consulting contracts with MDR, which broadcasts in Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. Accordingly, the broadcaster is said to have awarded contracts to someone who was entrusted with checking the amount of the broadcasting fee.
Just a few days ago, the state broadcasting director of Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) in Saxony-Anhalt, Ines Hoge-Lorenz, resigned from her post. The reason she gave was that she failed to mention that her husband played a role in the Causa Foht. The public prosecutor’s office accuses the former MDR entertainment boss Udo Foht of fraud, infidelity, bribery and tax evasion.
