TV license fees in Germany - Rundfunkbeitrag, formerly known as GEZ

[ian 3,972]

Perhaps we should blame the legal system.

[MrNosey 5,320]

 

Oh, I agree with the raising of the retirement age in the UK. It has to happen. It's just that people there didn't whinge about it as much as they do over here. They are discussing raising the age slightly in Germany.. over the next.. oh, I don't know.. more than a decade. I commented on it on another website. They tread softly there.

 

Hardly. It's already set at 67 for men and women of my age in Germany. The UK is playing catch-up, not vice versa.

[ovbg 724]

 

Claus Kleber, who is presenting the news on ZDF, is earning €600.000 per year, apparently. This is where the money goes: high wages and big live shows. Which big live entertainment show does the BBC produce on a regular basis where big stars like Jennifer Lopez (BTW- she was on "Wetten dass.." last Saturday) do a performance? The budget of "Wetten dass.." seems to be unlimited if you look at the stars who appear there: Madonna, Mariah Carey, Sharika, etc. In the past they had Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston as well. They don't come for free .

 

Come on. The BBC is also well know for high wages. Sometimes many said it went to far when people like Johnathon Ross who was on an 18million pound deal for his show "Friday Night with...".

 

As for big stars on chat & entertainment shows, um, I guess you don't watch UK TV. I would be very surprised if more stars ended up on ZDF or ARD over the BBC - I mean it's London for a start, which is Europe's premier city. London is the NY of Europe - not Cologne, Mainz, Hamburg, or wherever. That guy I mentioned above had all the big names on his show and they continue on ITV which has a far smaller budget than the BBC did.

[ian 3,972]

The BBC can turn a profit on their big budget shows.

[Gwaptiva 7,111]

If ARD/ZDFetc cannot turn a profit, they should reduce costs. Mind you, do you know how many Jonathan Rosses you can hire for 8 billion euros?

[rick_de 823]

 

I don't know if it's any consolation... but they're going to do the same in Finland as of next January, too.

 

I do find it outrageous. When the heck do I have time to watch TV? I have never owned a bloody TV set, there is no space in my flat for a TV set, and I do not want to be tied to a bloody timetable. And before anyone starts saying... oh, get a recorder.. I say that I don't want the extra bloody hassle of that. Then you have to remember that the Germans can make any subject of interest to me sound so deadly boring that my brain switches off after 10 minutes. (I used to watch TV at my gran's place. It's the only thing they could think of doing in the evenings.)

 

I pay GEZ for a radio as I do have a radio. I never listen to German radio as that is as boring as German TV. And believe me... I've tried and tried over the years to find a decent radio station - trying out the suggestions of other people here and in real life. What do I listen to? BBC Radio 4 extra.. then BBC RAdio 4, BBC Radio 2 for some music programmes and then Swing FM from France which is non-stop jazz, swing and some gospel. All from the golden age of jazz.

 

German media? Boring, boring, boring, boring. But we have to pay for this dross.

 

Agree totally. I no longer have a tv, not interested in any of it. Dont listen to German radio either.

 

I watched German tv when I first came to Germany, partly out of curiosity, partly out of the tv habit that you have from when you were a kid, and partly to help with assimilating the language.

 

After a few years I began to ask myself what benefit I was getting from this diet of dire German tv. So I got rid of it completely. The internet made this decision easier, you can get good stuff from the web and so you no longer need to suffer their output anymore.

 

 

Looks like they are pretty comfortable in the legal department as they are hiring 400 new field agents to ferret out non-compliant households/individuals.

 

GEZ will Bürger künftig noch stärker ausforschen

 

This I find the most unpleasant aspect of this GEZstapo system. For that reason alone I think the GEZ tax should be abolished.

 

Also the GEZ concept is based on the old "broadcast to the people" Volksempfaenger system.

But we no longer just have 3 or 4 channels and a couple of radio stations presided over by Dr Goebbels.

 

When the broadcast spectrum was limited, when there was no satellite or internet, when there were only one or two national providers of audio/visual media, then it was justifiable. But no longer.

 

Electronic media nowadays is produced by a whole range of sources world wide and it's accessible globally to anyone now via the web. Do these providers receive a share of the GEZ tax that everyone will be forced to pay???

 

 

The BBC has no advertising and yet manages to produce world class programmes. The Germans have a more expensive licence fee and advertising and manage to produce rubbish.

 

Very well said!

 

If they still want to stick to these old pre-internet, pre-satellite, "tv license fee" systems, then let people at least choose which country they want to pay their license fee to within the EU. I'd prefer my money to go to the UK's BBC license fee, rather than to the ARD/ZDF to pay for the rubbish they put out. Which also includes great long blocks of extremely tedious commercials as well.

 

 

I have yet to miss anything on German TV. As in "Oh, what a shame I don't have a TV, I would love to see that series every week."

 

Me too. Occasionally I've looked at the ZDF or Tagesschau on the Web. The presentation style is so wooden and quaint it's like going back 20 or more years. It's practically retro. I'm not missing anything there!

[Hazza 5,456]

 

Claus Kleber, who is presenting the news on ZDF, is earning €600.000 per year, apparently. This is where the money goes: high wages and big live shows. Which big live entertainment show does the BBC produce on a regular basis where big stars like Jennifer Lopez (BTW- she was on "Wetten dass.." last Saturday) do a performance? The budget of "Wetten dass.." seems to be unlimited if you look at the stars who appear there: Madonna, Mariah Carey, Sharika, etc. In the past they had Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston as well. They don't come for free .

 

But herein lies the problem.

 

Why should I be forced to pay for Thomas Gottschalk (or whoever his replacement is) to schmooze up to Jennifer Lopez? What's the public interest that requires every household to pay for that?

 

I'm quite happy to help pay in order to get a good, independent news and current affairs coverage. That's in the national interest.

 

The rest is fluffed up bullshit that should be forced to finance itself through a strict user pays system for those interested (like pay TV) or through advertising...

[zwiebelfisch 6,943]

I think that the shocking truth is that most people want the Gottschalk stuff, and in fact it is them subsidising your entertainment not the other way arround. Dont get me wrong, Im not saying its good Im just saying it is popular.

[Perfect Poise 3,092]

I think you're right. Try and tell most Germans that German TV is crass, stupid and intellectually devoid, and most of them won't have it. They'll defend those crappy homegrown soaps, badly dubbed US series and simply dreadful rehashes of British reality shows (which were dreadful in the first place) to the last breath.

[MrNosey 5,320]

Don't forget that TV reflects the culture though. I wonder how many Germans would find "Terry & June", "Coronation Street" or "Eastenders" unmissable TV fodder.

[Hazza 5,456]

It doesn't matter if it's popular amongst "most" people.

 

I believe that my taxes (and this is a tax from next year) should be paying for essential services for the good of the country.

 

Now I know that access to independent news sources can be considered this - and as I said, I'm happy to pay my share of the cost of this. But I object having to pay for shitty "light entertainment" tv shows that don't come under this umbrella - no matter how you look at it.

 

I don't want to pay so that some overpaid fuckwit can interview some other overpaid fuckwit about their latest irrelevant piece of shit album/film/book/sporting achievement...

[Chocky 1,187]

 

Don't forget that TV reflects the culture though.

 

As someone once said: a country gets the television it deserves - maybe German TV should adopt the mantra of the BBC, 'to inform, educate and entertain' At the moment it serves little useful purpose.

[MrNosey 5,320]

That's just your British culture talking, Chocky.

I think the BBC is the best TV in the world but still, it does produce some truly shite programming for the UK's own "HartzIV" community.

[nina_glyndwr 4,679]

Yeah... I can't stand Eastenders because every time I catch it, there seem to be two women shouting "You slag, I'm gonna get ya" at each other.

 

On the other hand, the BBC sells loads of programmes all over the world and has some outstanding series of classic literature and documentaries.

[black1 1,575]

Take a look at CITV, CBeebies and CBBC and there you see some incredible British TV.

[Chocky 1,187]

 

That's just your British culture talking, Chocky.

 

Give me British culture over Eurotrash any day.

[gkh50 1]

bastardos, was thinking of doing the usual and not paying but now it all changes... alas as selfemployed registered to my flat, I think I will take the micro company payment option and pay the same as I do now for 1 radio... and put it down as business costs.

[fraufruit 29,159]

 

doing the usual and not paying

Sad state of affairs when this is the "usual".

[ian 3,972]

not sad! hooray for not pay!

[fraufruit 29,159]

T'will be interesting in 2013.

 

Gawd, we had to pay TV tax in Singapore. Talk about crap TV - we watched nothing.