Mon, Jul 11, 2005 page11

• Advertising scandal hits German TV broadcasting

  • AFP
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  It's alright for James Bond to chase the baddies in a luxury BMW sports car or seduce the ladies with a bottle of Dom Perignon.

  In fact, identifying the brands of the latest state-of-the-art gadgets or spotting the name-tags of the designer clothes worn by 007's latest flame may actually be part of the glamour and fun of watching a James Bond movie.

  But it is an altogether different matter when the TV soap stars in Germany are seen using a particular type of Internet service provider to access their e-mail, eating a certain brand of yoghurt, or doctors in a hospital series are heard naming the drugs of well-known pharmaceutical companies.

  product placement

  Especially if those soap operas are broadcast on prime-time public TV and the companies involved are asked to pay for the privilege of visibly placing their products in programs on channels that should, by nature of their TV licence, be largely free of advertising.

  Indeed, in a snowballing media scandal, public channels such as ARD and ZDF, which like to see themselves as the great educators, find themselves charged with systematically doing just that, thereby exposing their vulnerable early-evening viewing audience of children and teenagers to the so-called "brain-washing" effects of subliminal advertising.

  Product placement is an illegal practice for Germany's public broadcasters, with a line carefully but finely drawn between the use of objects or products in films and dramas that are dramaturgically necessary and those that are not.

  raising millions

  But Bavaria Film GmbH, the production company that makes some of daily soap operas and other television programs for ARD and ZDF, is alleged to have raised over 1.5 million euros (US$1.8 million) in advertising revenues from such illicit practices via the early-evening soap Marienhof over the past three years.

  Furthermore, at a time of widespread debate about the television licence fee and the role of public television broadcasters, the allegations have plunged ARD and ZDF further into a deep crisis.

  The directors of WDR and ZDF, Fritz Pleitgen and Markus Schaechter, insist that the broadcasters knew nothing of the machinations at Bavaria Film and have promised "sharp and intensive sanctions" against the wrongdoers.

  But while three managers at Bavaria have indeed been fired in the wake of the affair, its chief, Thilo Kleine, has received only a slap on the wrists and is even being considered as the possible new director of ARD's west German regional arm, WDR.

  It is therefore hardly surprising that private rivals, commercial channels such as RTL and SAT1, which in the past have financed themselves solely through advertising revenues, accuse ARD and ZDF of having been involved in systematic corruption.

  The private broadcasters want ARD and ZDF, which carry a short blocks of commercials in the early evening hours, to be banned from using advertising altogether, a proposal that the public channels have vehemently rejected.

  "Covert advertising and open advertising have nothing to do with one another," said WDR's Pleitgen.

  But even politicians have become involved, with the newly installed regional premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Juergen Ruettgers, charging that covert product placement undermined the credibility and objectivity of programming on public television.

  Adding to ARD's woes, the editor-in-chief for sports at regional broadcaster HR, Juergen Emig, is currently being held in custody on corruption charges.

  He is accused of demanding payments from sports associations for allowing their competitions to be broadcast on TV.

  The mass-circulation daily Bild accused ARD of being a moral "pigsty."

  "But it doesn't stop them from wanting to raise the licence fees fast enough," it raged.
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