KonzeptioNerd

Quo Vadis, TV?!

But, seriously. The current issue of German weekly Die Zeit dedicates an entire Dossier to the quality crisis of German public television (”Unser Gott, die Quote”, not online (yet)). On four pages, they manage to mention the internet not once. Oh no, wait, it’s worse.They do mention the internet, in one short paragraph, towards the end of the article:

Die Generation Internet liest keine Programmzeitschriften mehr, verabredet sich nicht mehr um 21.45 Uhr mit Claus Kleber, lässt sich durchs Netz treiben. Das Fernsehen rennt flüchtenden Zuschauern hinterher, stellt Nachrichtenclips online, sucht Anschluss, irrt herum.

Or, in English:

The internet generation no longer reads the TV guides, they don’t make 21.45 pm appointments with Claus Kleber (ZDF news anchor), they drift through the web. TV is running after escaping viewers, posts newsclips online, hopes to connect, strays.

So, the broadcast people know only synchronous viewer ratings and the WebTV people look only at the quality of their infrastructure. Small surprise one medium is slowly (?) losing its relevance while the other one does not get traction. Then again, German public TV (i.e. those of the content guys who are not driven be ad-sales) are permanently urged by the law to keep their fingers as far off the internet as possible. But, hey, private TV works just fine as an advertising medium, so why shouldn’t the internet <sarcasm mode off>. Good thing the internet is making young people more and more comfortable with English as they’re conversation language, so they don’t depend on German media so much.

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