Well not directly from taxes, but still public money. It's great to see it that not all of it is spent on entertainment for old people ("Musikantenstadl") and sports.

Kind of validates how well public funding works for art and culture.

Not saying I agree or disagree with your conclusion (I'm undecided), but I disagree with your reasoning. The question whether the Rundfunkbeitrag is good is partly philosophical ("what is the role of the state?") and partly practical ("does the state provide better media than private enterprise?"), and I don't think this example sheds light on either aspect.

This is also pure insanity: https://www.swrfernsehen.de/eisenbahn-romantik/index.html

They need to go to jail

Because you don't care for it?

I wouldn't say Musikantenstadl is just for old people. Perhaps 90% older viewers from what I can tell, but I can (personally!) guarantee that the figure isn't 100% ;)

Also, while I wouldn't watch it if it was the last thing running on the last TV working after the apocalypse, a large swath of the population really enjoy it who aren't an interesting advertising demographic and who may not have the tech and financial means to access it otherwise.

This is the system working: desirable content that couldn't be viably financed by the private sector.

Isnt it the shitty Rundfunkgebühr

No, it's the very good Rundfunkgebühr. Makes sure we still have something besides garbage journalism here. And also, arts & culture like this.

With extreme-right parties polling >30%, I hesitate to give the state so much power for propaganda. See e.g. Poland https://www.ft.com/content/1861164c-1e41-4640-95a1-5615a0e9b... .

That's the reason for the Rundfunkgebühr instead of taxes. Keep it a bit further away from the state to limit its influence.

Forcing all conservatives to pay for media made by an unelected clique with very different values is still not great.

I know we want to avoid ending up with super-polarized media like the US, but I don't believe this is the way. I don't know what the way is, since you also don't want to give airtime to the crazies, and I feel the market for sane conservative news shrinks by the minute.

Why conservative? I am not a conservative.

I made a fortune in the adult industry in the 00s, one of my business partners now is extremely gay and I love him from the bottom of my heart, the other one is black as the night and more against uncontrolled immigration than any of my extreme conservative friends.

You are already called a right wing extremist if you believe that there are only 2 genders, that too many 'refugees' will destroy societies and value systems and that climate change has existed for millions of years.

I just want a neutral, unbiased source of news. No gender language, no judging wrong or right, no support of climate terrorist organisations, no praise of leftist ideologies, no climate change scaremongering.

But it will not change. At least not in Germany. The famous Kurt Beck incidents etc. It's over.

based on the last drama involving the executives of public TV Channels, I'm not sure if it stills hold true

While I agree with your statement of not giving states too much power over the news, it overlooks the special organizational structure and paints a false picture. The highest controlling body of the öffentliche-rechtliche is the Rundfunkrat which is structured so that it represents "a cross-section of society". It includes organisations like unions or churches.

The Rundfunkrat appoints the Intendant who in turn has autonomy when it comes to programming.

I'm not saying that there's nothing to criticize about the structure but it was especially created in this way to provide checks and balances and not giving politicians direct control over the news. When some tried that in the past it made the news [2].

I think a right wing government would have an easier time defunding and replacing it with its own propaganda channels instead of using it for propaganda.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rundfunkrat [2] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/zdf-anruf-wird-zu...

Links are in German.

I love how you pointed out this one conservative involvement and leave out the thousands of leftist involvements.

Also just quoting from the wikipedia article:

"Dies sind z. B. Gewerkschaften, Frauenverbände, Kirchen und Fraktionen."

"Vertreter von LGBT-Verbänden sind im Fernsehrat des..."

It might not fit into your left agenda but this is so far from reality.

Quoting the Wikipedia article you linked:

"Er kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass weder die Räte ihrem Anspruch, die Vielfalt der Gesellschaft zu repräsentieren, gerecht werden noch dass benachteiligte Gruppen ausreichend anzutreffen sind."

I replied specifically to a comment concerning the ability of an extreme right wing government to use them as a propaganda channel by pointing out that there are some checks and balances in place.

And you reply to that by saying the inclusion of women, churches, unions and LGBT-organisations is a left thing and insinuating I have a political agenda. And the last quote actually says it does not live up to being a cross-section of society because underprivileged groups are not adequately represented. Going by your logic that would mean they're not left after all, right?

But seriously, you're spreading some pretty radical opinions all over this thread, calling people names and calling for the jailing of entire groups of people. I'm not going to further interact with you. Have a good night :-)

Thanks for the links and the explanation, very interesting. I guess it's silly to go through the whole debate here, I'm sure reams of A4 have been written on this topic.

Right now it is fake news driven by left propaganda. The community notes on X are speaking for themselves.

Could you link to the single strongest, most well-sourced example you can think of where the state media is biased/lying? I honestly want to find my blind spots. Please put effort into this, this is your chance to effect change.

Should we link how the Silvester and Christmas in Poland x in Germany look like? Nothing is so black and white as you want to make it look like...

I personally pay it, I'm german, it sometimes takes the last of my food budget for the month and I consume no radio, no tv, no news, no newspapers, nothing like that. Not very good

Yes. WDR is the worst of the worst. The way that they are pushing the leftist woke agenda with people's money needs to be taken to court.

>The way that they are pushing the leftist woke agenda...

Could you clarify exactly what 'the leftist woke agenda' is (in this case)? I see so many accusations, but very few people are able to explain what they mean.

I’m also interested in hearing this. It seems to be mostly code words for other right leaning folk. What they actually mean they never say out loud, because it’s usually bigotry against people of color and lgbtq folks.

Edit: downvotes but still no explanation.

No, I believe people would like to know precise details of what you're referring to as "left woke agenda".