Breaking: Germany questions the survival of radio orchestras
NewsAs the BBC ponders the demolition of half of its orchestras over the next two years, an influential voice in German broadcasting has given voice to the burning question: who needs radio orchestras?
Tom Buhrow, chairman of the national broadcaster ARD, said he was expressing ‘a personal opinion’ as ‘a private citizen’. But the Hamburg forum in which he made the remarks was public and the press were encouraged to report them.
The floodgates have opened.
Report here in the FAZ.
The question is not who needs radio orchestras, the question is how did the German broadcasting system become some dysfunctional and self-serving, so that managers like Tom Buhrow EACH cost Germans 700.000 Euro per year in salary and benefits. The managers of the networks are the highest paid public servants, more than the Chancellor. Tom Buhrow is just using smoke and mirrors to deflect attention from his insane salary. The orchestras are the least of the problem here.
Actually, behind all these overpaid functionaries (Intendant, Chefredakteur etc) are the politicians. You can’t get anywhere unless you have the right “Parteibuch”. You could of course move to a different “Bundesland” if you want to work for an ARD station closer to your own political persuasion, but that doesn’t apply to all those who work for ZDF and are tied down in Mainz (the centre of all its operations). Either way, politicians get to interfere far more in such appointments than they should, though given recent developments at the BBC, the UK is not necessarily in a better position than Germany.
The linked article is meanwhile behind the paywall, but this one remains freely accessible, at least up to now:
https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/ard-und-zdf-tom-buhrow-schlaegt-eine-grundsatzreform-vor-18432251.html
It’s a print version of that speech, indeed meant for publication, just not held in an official capacity to circumvent the usual taboos.
It are just a few sentences that are in question here:
“Die ARD unterhält insgesamt 16 Ensembles: Orchester, Big Bands, Chöre. Etwa 2000 Menschen, fast alle fest angestellt. Obwohl die zu den besten ihrer Zunft gehören – wir können auch hier der Frage nicht ausweichen: Wollen die Beitragszahler das? Wollen sie es in dieser Größenordnung? Oder wollen sie ein Best Of? Das beste Sinfonieorchester, den besten Chor, die beste Big Band, das beste Funkhausorchester? Übrigens: RBB und Deutschlandfunk haben schon nach der Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands ein kluges Modell gewählt. Die Orchester wurden in eine Stiftung verlagert – mit Beteiligung von Land und Bund.”
That’s just their names!! Same with the BBC orchestra in London.
All radio orchestras, all classical music orchestras, radio or not, could be dismantled and 99.99% of the world population would not notice. The possible exception could be the Vienna Philharmonic whose absence would possibly be perceived on New Year’s day.
Whoever wants a radio orchestra should set-up one. Just don’t seek taxpayer money to pay for it! Sell your product on the market like everybody else, and if the market does not want it, try to improve it or close your business.
“bare truth” offers humanity a bare existence.
Just a matter of time, you just launch the idea in the atmosphere, get people used to it, then it happens. Europe is in the way of self destruction by abandonning its culture….
The sky isn’t falling quite yet. “Europe” is a big place, so let’s be specific: Countries with heavy cultural subsidies on the continent are a long way from the parched standards in the UK let alone the US. Given the continent’s two world wars in ‘recent’ history, I think those culture-splurging countries are actually managing quite well to maintain standards in the classical music, theatre, dance, etc. worlds.
I fear not the cut in subsidies. I fear the enabling decline in intelligence, culture, refinement, … the rise of ignorance, the swell of loud-mouth denigrators of thinking and culture. I fear ignorance and what follows. Let’s just recall Trump, Truss, the ENO leadership teams, UK culture secretaries, and blind apostles of American capitalism where everything has to pay for itself (and as a result you have an instant backwater country…)…
But I ramble…
Who needs the ARD? Who trusts the ARD? Or anything EXCEPT the radio orchestras?
Back to Neanderthal…
Not an unreasonable question.