I personally prefer boring news backed by quality journalism and funded by people rather than sensational, outrageous and superficially controversial news! If I want the excitement I watch a drama or action movie. I think the news articles/pieces work like clickbait; the more head-turning they get, the more viewers they acquire which results in higher profits.

I am not talking about sensational or misleading like in FoxNews or CNN :-) I am talking about boring as in....very serious persons, on a serious background, reading very serious the Reuters or Ap news of the day. As the service was paid and it has to provided ;-) A better model would be instead having to provide good analysis or quality content otherwise your audience will go somewhere. As in for example, the FT or the Economist.

Actually thinking about it, the issue is wider than just the news and I think the financing mode of the mandatory tax is a big part of it. What is really a shame, as Germany has a rich culture of hundreds of years so great content in all forms should not be a problem.

"Why is TV in Germany so bad?" https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/3d4vxz/why_is_tv_i...

"Why is German TV so crap?" https://www.exberliner.com/blogs/the-berlinale-blog/berlinal...

You might comment the BBC financing model is similar and I would agree. I think the difference is that the BBC also embraced a highly commercial model of selling content like Top Gear and other stuff worldwide. In this case the English language content with its planetary audience, pushed for a more competitive/commercial model and the German TV stayed too insular in my view.

Audience engagement chases entertainment (and thus reproduces CNN/MSNBC/Fox etc). You won't get what you want by tweaking that metric alone.

> Is this the fee you have to pay even if you are blind or deaf [...]

That's not correct. If you are deaf, you get a reduction - if you are blind, you get a reduction. If you are deaf-blind, you don't pay at all. If you are already receiving financial help because of your blindness, you don't pay at all.

You are right about it, did that change recently? According to the reference below it depends on the degree of deafness or blindness...if you can still hear or see something still have to pay...

https://www.rundfunkbeitrag.de/buergerinnen_und_buerger/info...

Not a big fan of the GIS either, but my stance is not as extreme. I see benefits, but there is problems as well. It could be a good system if there was a proper reform and if you get politicians out of the system.

Deutschlandfunk alone is worth it imho