BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – About a week before the election of directors at the ARD broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB), the candidates present themselves to the decisive supervisory body. In the Broadcasting Council meeting on Thursday (from 5 p.m.), surprisingly, not three but four applicants will present themselves.
The three women on the list of candidates so far are: Heide Baumann (50, most recently a member of the management board of Vodafone Germany), Ulrike Demmer (50, from 2016 to 2021 deputy spokeswoman for the past black-red federal government) and Juliane Leopold (40, Editor-in-Chief Digital of ARD-aktuell since 2019).
On Wednesday evening it turned out that the program director of the ARD broadcaster Radio Bremen, Jan Weyrauch (55), is also in the running. A conflict within the selection committee went hand in hand with the personnel: the staff representatives belonging to the committee had made a public statement on Tuesday that Weyrauch should be on the list. They accused the head of the RBB board of directors, who also belongs to the commission, of having mentioned a salary cap in preliminary talks, which is why the candidate disappeared from the list.
It is still unclear whether interim broadcaster Katrin Vernau will still have a chance in the race for the post of director. On Tuesday she confirmed her willingness to continue in office. When asked by dpa about the status of the election process, the 50-year-old said: “My willingness to continue running the station has been known since February, it still exists.” However, she did not apply and was therefore not included on the list of candidates.
The director election became necessary because the RBB fell into a deep crisis in the summer of 2022. There were allegations of nepotism and waste against the then director Patricia Schlesinger and the station supervisor Wolf-Dieter Wolf. Schlesinger was dismissed without notice. Both rejected the allegations. The Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating, while the presumption of innocence applies.
In May it became known that the non-tariff salaries in the RBB should be noticeably reduced according to the will of the board of directors. The top salaries and the high number of non-tariff employees at Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) were also criticized in the middle of the crisis./rin/DP/jha