News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England. Parent comment

Re:TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England by hef19898 on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @05:57AM (#25832153)
That money has no strings attached, unless the amunt is about to be changed. An changes to the fee have to be agreed upon by both chambers, Bundestag and Bundesrat. The Bundesat, representing the individual states, means state parliaments have to agree first. That's the reason why the last fee increase fell through after one state feared backlash from the AfD leaning members of the CDU (Merkals party) and voted against it.

Once the fee is agreed upon, it cannot be changed either way with out every parliamnt agreeing to do so. The money cannot be held back by te "government" (we have coalitions, and those change regularly every 10 years or so). Neither can it be held back for state broadcasters (third programms) by the local governments or parliaments. Sounds pretty tempering free to me.

And the debate did happen in 2015, or didn't you see the same panel discussions I saw? It also happened in print and the public broacasters reported aboutthat debate in their news segments. The nature of these news segments being to report facts and not to debate.

It just turned out that only one party really opposed the opening of boarders, along with the right wings of the cnservative parties CDU and CSU. Thos are not the majority but rather a very very loud minority.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England by realityking on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @06:47AM (#25832498)
Nitpicking but this is a common misconception:

> An changes to the fee have to be agreed upon by both chambers, Bundestag and Bundesrat.

The federal government, and thus Bundestag and Bundesrat, have no say in the funding or operation of Germany's public broadcasters. The exception being Deutsche Welle which is not available in Germany and has an "external" audience.

The funding on operation of public broadcasters is instead determined by a compact between the 16 states.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England by hef19898 on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @07:02AM (#25832595)
Ah thanks for the clarification! I always had the impression it was the Bundesrat\Tag. The compact things confused me. But that makes this whole thing even more robust it seems.
[ Parent | on HN ]