Patricia Schlesinger leaves behind a pile of rubble after her resignation as artistic director of Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg. If you asked yourself beforehand how all the allegations, which were disputed but not refuted at all, could come about, after this weekend you can only look in bewilderment towards the RBB headquarters on Masurenallee.
A public broadcaster, which the artistic director missed a savings corset years ago, but in which the management level is provided with fat salary increases and a bonus system – the word “reward” is forbidden in a system financed by compulsory fees – seems to have lost all decency.
And with all the understanding that a broadcaster invests money in order to broadcast a more modern image, the director of the RBB apparently also overstretched the curve when it came to the interior design of the executive floor.
In the end, Patricia Schlesinger failed because of her hubris. A public broadcaster cannot at the same time save on the program until it crunches – see Kulturradio and TV-Vorabend – and at the same time spend contribution money on prestige projects.
Did she really believe that a leader like her was entitled to all of this, or was she hoping that this would remain secret – in a media company? This is not only presumptuous, but simply unworldly.
Instead of leaving the station at the age of 65 in 2026 with the opening of a modern media house, a promising career now ends with a bang that will reverberate for a long time.
Patricia Schlesinger leaves the RBB and her successor a mortgage for the necessary new beginning that cannot be measured in euros and cents alone. The financial aspect should not be underestimated.
Even if the digital media house is not built – which no one is expecting at the moment – ​​the broadcaster will have to pay for the follow-up costs of the preparatory phase now.
Even greater, if not irreparable, is the damage to the reputation of the RBB and the reputation of the entire public service broadcaster in Germany. Not only the declared opponents of ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandfunk now have access to a huge arsenal of examples of what is wrong with public broadcasters and why this system cannot be saved.
The extent of the damage will soon be felt by the selection committee to be set up to look for a new artistic director. It is already being warned that it must be a “technically competent and absolutely integrity” personality.
Will the public stable smell, which was so helpful before, harm it in the future? This time does a male applicant from ZDF have better chances than an ARD woman? And what options does the new employee have after taking office? There are many question marks, not only when it comes to clarifying the allegations against Patricia Schlesinger and others.
