TV news through the looking glass

Imagine a national TV news program focused almost entirely on politics and economic news, with an anchor who reads from a paper script not a prompter. No one would watch it, right? Unless, of course, you’re in Germany, where the 15-minute Tagesschau (Daily Show) at 8 pm is the number one nightly newscast.

The program airs on ARD, one of the country’s two public television networks. It’s the most successful newscast in Europe, according to editor-in-chief Thomas Hinrichs, with a 30% share of the audience. And it’s dull by design.

“Our philosophy is not to do any entertaining news,” Hinrichs says. “We are very conservative and people like it.”

Like network news in the US, Tagesschau has a graying audience–the average age is 59–and ARD knows it needs to attract younger viewers. But instead of trying to draw them in by presenting a zippier program or covering a broader range of topics, the company’s strategy is to spread its current product across more platforms, from the Web to on-demand TV to mobile phones.

“We will not compromise on issues in our news show,” Hinrichs told a group of journalists visiting ARD headquarters in Hamburg last week on a fellowship sponsored by the RIAS Commission in partnership with RTNDF. He’s confident–some might say arrogant–about the network’s approach.

Tagesschau, he says, covers all the important news that Germans need to know. “What is not in this show is not relevant,” he said flatly.

The program has its own Web site with a staff of 30 to rewrite or adapt TV scripts and wire stories for online use. For reporters, filing for the Web is entirely voluntary. The network’s involvement in social media is in its infancy. You can follow Tagesschau on Twitter, for example, but all you’ll get is an automated headline feed.

Can this anachronism survive? “We are not naive,” Hinrichs says. “If nobody watches, no one will want to pay [the monthly license fee that funds public broadcasting].”

But there’s no sense of panic at Tagesschau. No one is pushing for rapid or radical change. Yes, the audience is aging, but hey–maybe they’ll stay alive for a while. “We have a good health care system,” Hinrichs jokes.

There’s something endearingly old-school about a news program with a substantial audience whose managers aren’t driven by ratings or profit. “It’s a service,” says Hinrichs. “It doesn’t have to pay off at the end.”  But young Germans aren’t watching TV news any more than young Americans are. At some point, you have to believe that even Tagesschau will need to evolve to survive.

You might also like

---