EU criticizes online offerings from ARD and ZDF

 There has long been a dispute in Germany about what the public broadcasters ARD and ZDF are allowed to do on their internet portals. The EU Commission has now commented on this. If the limits for ARD and ZDF Internet offerings are not tightened, it is threatening the federal states with legal action. "Anyone who believes that they can leave it at the regulation that ARD and ZDF are only not allowed to offer newspapers and magazines in electronic form obviously does not want to play by the European rules," said EU Media Commissioner Viviane Reding to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The new Interstate Broadcasting Treaty must contain "clear and unambiguous rules". In the current issue of Focus, Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner also expressed his concern as to why the money collected from licence fee payers should be used to engage in unfair competition with the private sector on the Internet. Some public service online offerings, such as the dating platform Liebesalarm.de or e-commerce activities, have nothing to do with the broadcasters' information mandate.
The German Minister Presidents will now meet on Thursday to discuss the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty. According to the draft, "non-broadcast-related offers from the electronic press" should not be permitted on the websites of ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio. Publishers and private broadcasters see such offers as a distortion of competition.
The EU's statement is also interesting for Switzerland. After all, publishers in this country also repeatedly criticize the SRG's internet activities.