At the ARD there are already far-reaching plans for the digital offer. Among other things, a streaming platform is probably planned, which should even compete with Netflix.
Something is happening at ARD; at least there are big plans. ARD chairman Kai Gniffke in particular has announced ambitious goals for his media network. A few weeks ago, he announced that he would introduce extensive savings measures and, above all, that he wanted to rethink the digital offer. Now Gniffke followed suit. With a large investment of several hundred million euros, he even wants to attack Netflix, Prime Video and Co.
ARD is planning large streaming investments
The ARD as number 1 streaming service in Germany? Sounds adventurous at first, but Gniffke actually wants to achieve this goal by the end of the decade. That said the chairman, who has been in office since the beginning of the year, on Saturday at the Evangelical Academy in Tutzing meeting. First and foremost, this requires the appropriate technologies and investments. This is also decisive for the competition in general; otherwise one cannot stand up to the big providers on the market.
The newer technologies around AI should also play a role. Among other things, this can be very helpful in detecting fake images, videos and other content. This is also useful for journalists, since text robots can help with research and take on other routine tasks.
Joint streaming platform with ZDF
“It’s going to cost a lot of money […]. We will not simply get these necessary resources on top of that. I’m not unworldly. So we have to join forces,” Gniffke sums up. This means that they want to join forces with the other public broadcasters in Germany, especially ZDF. ZDF recently formulated its own extensive plans for the future. Among other things, they work together with international providers to create their own social platform – TECHBOOK reported. The project, currently titled “Public Space Incubator”, is intended to provide an alternative to Twitter and Co. that work commercially.
In fact, this would also meet a requirement from the federal states. They have repeatedly called on the public-law institutions to work more closely together. According to Gniffke’s vision, “ARD will become a media association that combines journalistic quality content with first-class technology.” That’s why the vision of the ARD boss does not end with a common streaming platform. Rather, he wants to create a marketplace for all German media, in order to counteract the big players, at least in this country.
However, there are always discussions about the public broadcasters in Germany because they are financed to a large extent from the so-called broadcasting fee, which every household has to pay. This is currently 18.36 euros per month.