There is widespread disagreement, including in politics, about the new start of Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) demanded by all sides after the affair triggered by ex-director Patricia Schlesinger and former chairman of the board of directors Wolf-Dieter Wolf. But not only between the representatives of the parliaments of Berlin and Brandenburg different views on how to proceed are represented, but also within the Brandenburg SPD.

Erik Stohn, the media policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group and member of the RBB broadcasting council, published a press release on Sunday under the heading “Orderly realignment instead of actionism and chaos”, in which he dealt with the statement by the ARD chairman. WDR director Tom Buhrow had withdrawn the trust of the RBB management on behalf of the other ARD directors and indirectly asked them to resign immediately.

“I consider an immediate resignation of the branch management to be negligent. Without leadership, neither reconnaissance, reorganization nor an orderly handover will work,” Stohn counters this demand. Stohn, for whom Buhrow’s statement is a “non-solidarity kick in the shin”, “unlike it should be in a broadcasting family”, is confident that the RBB-initiated clarification process will progress quickly and come to a conclusion. “The future of the RBB is being shaped in Berlin and Brandenburg.” Stohn wrote about the RBB control body: “As the Broadcasting Council, we are aware of our responsibility and we take it seriously.”

Daniel Keller, the SPD parliamentary group leader in Brandenburg, apparently no longer has this patience. “Mr. Brandstätter’s communication does not serve the transparent clarification process and the RBB as a whole, he himself has become a burden for the RBB. I call on the board of directors and the broadcasting council to appoint a new acting director immediately,” he said on the Twitter account of the SPD parliamentary group in Brandenburg.

As chairman of the main committee of the Brandenburg Parliament, Keller chaired the two special sessions of the committee on the RBB crisis. Stohn, meanwhile, urges prudence: “The broadcasting council will come to an agreement with the administrative board and the legal supervisory authority on the future of the RBB this week. I advise against activism. It takes smart decisions, a systematic clarification process and an orderly reorganization of the RBB leadership.”