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Abstract
This paper compares the structural developments of regional television in Britain and Germany from the early days of broadcasting to the present from an institutional and organisational perspective. Drawing on a series of interviews with policy-makers and other key personalities, it is argued that the combination of political administrative borders and regional television boundaries, as exists in the German Länder, provides a fruitful basis for a strong regional television service. During the post-war period divergences between Länder borders and Consortium of Public-Law Broadcasting Institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany (ARD) broadcasting boundaries, palpably manifest in south-west Germany, have been harmonised, leading to thorough conformity. However, in centralised England questions of regionalism have strangely played such an important role in the evolution of television, and there are evident disjunctures between regional boundaries and television regions. This applies to the regional structure of Independent Television (ITV) as well as to the regional initiatives of the BBC, which, since the mid-1980s, increasingly takes over ITV's regional duties, fulfilling primarily political demands.
Notes
1. The interviews were conducted as part of a broader body of research concerned with the comparison of British and German communications policies from the early days of broadcasting to the present. For more detail with regard to the interviews, their methodological and empirical dimension (see Potschka 8–9).
2. Excluding the Soviet Russian occupation zone, 10 Länder were created. The British occupation zone comprised the Länder Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Lower-Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. The American occupation zone included the Länder Bavaria, Hesse, Bremen and Württemberg-Baden. The French occupied Rhineland-Palatinate, the Saarland, as well as Württemberg-Hohenzollern and Baden. Berlin was subdivided between the four occupying powers.
3. North Rhine-Westphalia contributed more than half of the NWDR licence-fee revenues and local politicians aimed for their own station in order to control it independently (Bausch 204). Since 1956, the WDR has catered for North Rhine-Westphalia. The NDR caters for the Länder Lower-Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and, since 1991, also Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
4. Since the mid-1960s, the ARD generated additional revenues from advertising.
5. Siepman, Charles Der Rundfunk in Westdeutschland (1951), DRA, ARD 7–32.01. Siepman identified another two inconsistencies. First, Radio Bremen (RB) lacked adequate funding and catered for a very small audience. Second, the NDWR catered for a disproportionately large area.
6. Interview, Walter Schütz, Dec. 2006.
7. In 1954 the ARD was joined by the Broadcasting Station Radio Free Berlin (SFB). In 1958 the Saarland Broadcasting Corporation (SR) followed suit. Until 1964 the WDR contributed 25% of programming, the NDR 20%, the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation (BR) 17%, the Hessian Broadcasting Corporation (HR), SDR, SWF and SFB 8% respectively and RB and SR contributed 3% each (Bausch 282–84).
8. During 2008 and 2009, RTL and Sat.1 broadcast 10 different regional window programmes, fulfilling their formal requirements as determined in the Länder broadcasting laws (Volpers, Schnier, and Bernhard 97).
9. Interview, Friedrich-Wilhelm von Sell, Jan. 2007.
10. WDR Zuschaueranfrage Programmplanung.
11. WDR Zuschaueranfrage Programmplanung.
12. These six (new) Länder are Berlin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western-Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.
13. The MDR was established to cater for the (new) Länder Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The ORB served the Land Brandenburg.
14. Interview, Jobst Plog, Jan. 2007.
15. Interview, Jobst Plog, Jan. 2007.
16. Interview, Walter Schütz, Dec. 2006.
17. Interview, Friedrich-Wilhelm von Sell, Jan. 2007.
18. Whereas the citizens of Berlin (not used to such a long tradition of federal sovereignty as, for example, Hamburg and Bremen) were not concerned about Berlin losing its Land status, the citizens of Brandenburg were worried about a dominant Berlin position and rejected the plan in a public referendum.
19. After allocating the three largest regions, the ITA abandoned the vertical time split and appointed all remaining franchises as seven-day services.
20. Interview, George Thomson, Oct. 2006. George Thomson was also the first British Commissioner for the European Community with responsibility for regional policy (1973–77).
21. Interview, George Thomson, Oct. 2006.
22. In 1964 the BBC separated Wales from the West of England and established BBC Wales (Lucas 200).
23. Still, in 1970 the three large English regions were replaced by eight smaller regional BBC centres. Three of those would become network production centres (Garitaonandía 285; McDowell 187).
24. Independent from the development of the ITV network, in 1982 the Welsh fourth channel S4C was launched, aiming specifically at a Welsh-speaking audience.
25. Broadcaster annual reports and accounts and broadcaster returns to Ofcom.
26. From the early 1990s to the end of the century, these five BBC regions were reduced to three: North, South and West, and Midlands and East (Wallace 56–57).
27. Interview, Greg Dyke, Jul. 2006.
28. Broadcaster annual reports and accounts and broadcaster returns to Ofcom.
29. Hours of data for first-run originations only. Data exclude Gaelic and Welsh language programming but include some spend on Irish language programming by the BBC.
30. Interview, Douglas Hurd, May 2006.
31. Interview, George Thomson, Oct. 2006.