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German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

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Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#81

Post by pjmlp »

usrusr wrote: post #48
qwertox wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TV license fee. This is how it's named in the UK. Broadcast license is what broadcasters pay for in order to be allowed to broadcast the licensed content.

The key difference is that the government never touches the money anywhere between citizen and broadcaster, to avoid unwarranted influence. I assume that people who know the British term know that, as the German one is surely modeled after the BBC. I'm writing for other readers. The downside is that it's a per head (or per household) sum, not coupled to income like taxes would be. This is usually explained away by th…

That is something I could never understand, and I have at least 20 year of GEZ adventures.

Back in Portugal, we took the approach that radio tax is part of the electricity bill, and when TVs came to be, the radio tax became TV tax as well.

Nothing else, doesn't matter how many people live on the household, if there are Internet devices, radio on the car, whatever.

Same applies to the church tax, everyone pays, it is part of the taxes and no one else, besides the state gets to see how much it is in practice.

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#82

Post by krispyfi »

callalex wrote: post #71
blueflow wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was about to call that the Rundfunkbeitrag is not legally a tax (Steuer), but a tax (Beitrag). For some reason that difference does not seem to exist in English and it translates to the same word??

If I’m understanding the concept correctly, in the USA we describe that kind of tax as “earmarked” which is a reference to folding the corner of a page in a book to mark your place.

> "Earmark" comes from the livestock term, where the ears of domestic animals were cut in specific ways so that farmers could distinguish their stock from others grazing on public land.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earmark_(politics)

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#84

Post by hobofan »

ffsm8 wrote: post #33
Adverblessly wrote: post #25

Here in Israel they just upload most of their TV content to YT, some if it is really good. They used to also stream (and archive) their news stuff, but for some reason I'm getting a 404. (You can look up Kan11 and Kan11news if you are curious, though I don't think they have translations so probably not useful if you don't speak Hebrew). EDIT: Looks like it is only broken for me in FireFox...

That was the case in Germany too, at least for a few years. They've since changed their tune and ceased uploading whole episodes, only excerpts go onto YouTube now with links to their own "Mediathek". From my understanding they're doing so because the content is paid for by public money, and YouTube is a foreign for-profit company. So they were essentially spending the citizens money to provide content to a private e…

There is still the "Funk" part of programming that targets people under 30. Almost all the content produced under that umbrella is available on YouTube (or Facebook, Instagram, TikTok), based on the realism that that's what's needed to reach the youth.

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#85

Post by addandsubtract »

hobofan wrote: post #84
ffsm8 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the case in Germany too, at least for a few years. They've since changed their tune and ceased uploading whole episodes, only excerpts go onto YouTube now with links to their own "Mediathek". From my understanding they're doing so because the content is paid for by public money, and YouTube is a foreign for-profit company. So they were essentially spending the citizens money to provide content to a private e…

There is still the "Funk" part of programming that targets people under 30. Almost all the content produced under that umbrella is available on YouTube (or Facebook, Instagram, TikTok), based on the realism that that's what's needed to reach the youth.

That, too, has been pulled back, though. Funk episodes are now released in the Mediathek first and only a few weeks(?) later on Youtube.

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#86

Post by kiney »

blueflow wrote: post #17
drewmcarthur wrote: post #3

public means public, if something is paid for by tax money, it should be licensed for public use

I was about to call that the Rundfunkbeitrag is not legally a tax (Steuer), but a tax (Beitrag). For some reason that difference does not seem to exist in English and it translates to the same word??

Because the reason is totally made up by german bureaucrats to steal more from the people

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#87

Post by TomK32 »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #61
TomK32 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 18,36€ per month, not 17. If you don't want people who don't care for TV or Radio (they do exist) to vote for AfD then you shouldn't have introduced a Rundfunkbeitrag that's very unpopular with many more. Scandals about money being badly spent just adds to the distrust and lack of interest people have in ARD, ZDF etc.

German TV Fee is significant older than AFD. Even the latest reform is older than AFD.

The current Rundfunkbeitrag which forces everyone to pay for something regardless wether they own a TV or radio, was introduced on January 1st 2013 and AFD was founded on February 6th the same year. Are 35 days a significant difference?

I didn't mind the old system to finance ARD/ZDF/... as I don't care about TV or radio and choose not to have either, but the new system is just not fair.

The French were smart enough to change their funding to be drawn from the general state budget: Less effort and no more grumpy people like me.

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#88

Post by TomK32 »

jupp0r wrote: post #65
TomK32 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call it "anti-competitive fear mongering" when one player in the market can rely on a virtually guaranteed income (you'd have to be homeless to avoid the Rundfunktbeitrag) while newspapers, private TV and radio have to fight for survival. ARD and ZDF buying and thus supporting the insane amounts that some sport events cost in license fees doesn't do FIFA and IOC any good as scandals of recent years have sh…

Are you saying that the German legislature cannot change the law?

Of course they can and are welcome to, but even though I agree with many things any variations of the past German governments have brought into law it doesn't mean I have to agree on all of them. And let's be honest: The TV and radio landscape has opened a lot over the past nine decades, unlike print media it had a few decades of being shielded from competition but why does it have to continue like this?

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#89

Post by PurpleRamen »

TomK32 wrote: post #87
PurpleRamen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

German TV Fee is significant older than AFD. Even the latest reform is older than AFD.

The current Rundfunkbeitrag which forces everyone to pay for something regardless wether they own a TV or radio, was introduced on January 1st 2013 and AFD was founded on February 6th the same year. Are 35 days a significant difference? I didn't mind the old system to finance ARD/ZDF/... as I don't care about TV or radio and choose not to have either, but the new system is just not fair. The French were smart enough…

The hate and complains about the Rundfunkbeitrag was always there, this did not start in 2013 or with the AFD. And the AFD today is very different from the original AFD in 2013, which didn't care about this.

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#90

Post by _tk_ »

FiberBundle wrote: post #80
_tk_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you vote for fascists - whose lead candidates seem to be spying for Russia and China - because of a 17€ license fee per month, then you should reevaluate your perspective on the public broadcasting system and on money.

Doesn't seem as if the public broadcasters are doing such a fine job, if their viewers obviously don't even know the definition of a fascist.

I'm not sure it's worthwhile to have this discussion here, but please elaborate.
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