ARLA/CLUSTER: Disputa economia entre produtores de radio e estações distribuidoras de FM podem deixar 10 milhões de alemães sem emissões

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

Germany - up to 10 million people could be hit by threatened radio shut down

The airwaves across many parts of Germany could fall silent next week due
to a financial dispute between radio stations and an FM broadcasting
provider.

The company *Media Broadcast* announced on Friday that it would cut off FM
broadcasters for several radio stations if they did not immediately fulfil
certain payment demands.

“Up to 10 million radio listeners could be affected by their FM broadcaster
being cut off from Wednesday onwards,� company head Wolfgang Breuer told
Die Welt.

Major public service broadcasters such as MDR, NDR and Deutschlandfunk are
among those who could be cut off, the newspaper reported.

The dispute began when Media Broadcast, formerly a subsidiary of Deutsche
Telekom, decided to move focus away from FM radio and onto digital
platforms last year. The shift meant that broadcasting antennae across
Germany, for which Media Broadcast had previously been responsible, were
sold to private investors.

Broadcasters and their network operators were then left furious when many
of the new owners raised prices for the use of their antennae, leading to a
stalemate in business negotiations.

Hessian broadcaster FFH told dpa that a 50 percent rise in the cost of
antennae use had left them with a “massive problem�.

In order to break the stalemate, Media Broadcast recently agreed to
continue operating all antennae until the end of June, so as to provide
more time for negotiations. Yet such an arrangement would still require the
stations to contract the company during that period.

Media Broadcast now claims that around 75 percent of stations have not done
this, and has threatened to cut these stations off if they do not
officially contract the company by Monday.

Though digital and online streaming radio will still be available, the mass
cut-off of FM radio broadcasts would affect a huge proportion of the
population. According to Bild, around 92.7 percent of Germans said they
still preferred listening to radio on an analogue device in a poll last
year.

Up to 10 million people could be hit by threatened radio shut down

https://www.thelocal.de/20180406/up-to-10-million-people-could-be-hit-by-threatened-radio-shut-down
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