An adult human needs 7 to 8 hours of sleep at night, some more, some less. This is an average value. Those who live in a family with school-age children whose classes start at 8 a.m. have to get up around 6 a.m. Waiting until the bathroom is free, having breakfast, going to school – it takes time.
The start of work, on the other hand, is often earlier. In the construction industry it is 7 a.m., in handicrafts too, garbage collectors often start at 6 a.m. During rush hour, the streets are at their busiest between 7 and 8 a.m. This coincides with the experience in public transport. These are all average values.
If you get up at 6 a.m. and want to have slept for at least 7 hours, you have to fall asleep by 11 p.m. at the latest. So don’t get ready and go to bed first, go to sleep. This is everyday life in millions of households in Germany.
Now a look at the early days of the political talk shows on the public television stations: Anne Will usually begins at 9:45 p.m. and ends at 10:45 p.m., Markus Lanz begins at 11:00 p.m., Sandra Maischberger begins at 10:45 p.m. and ends at Midnight, Frank Plasberg (hard but fair) starts at 9pm and ends at 10:15pm, Maybrit Illner starts at 10:15pm and ends at 11:15pm.
That means millions of people who work hard and want to get enough sleep are locked out of most public broadcast political talk.
According to their self-image, such debate formats should provide the viewers with information, give them orientation and thus enable them to find their way better in a complex world. Where else can politics be experienced so closely? Where else can the arguments of their representatives be tested, weighed and refuted in such an unfiltered manner?
The fact that many political talk shows are reviewed on online portals the next morning shows that discussions are triggered and continued independently of them. For this reason alone, the reference to media libraries is not comforting. In order to participate in the Marketplace Diversity of Opinion roar, one must have attended the event itself.
With such late broadcast times, who are the TV program managers targeting as users – students, freelancers, singles? Do you assume that the “normal people” are not particularly interested in politics anyway? Anyone who takes the information and orientation mandate seriously should refute this suspicion by sending earlier broadcast times.
