Magic televisions, cyclists at the wheel

Dear Reader,

It’s almost a year since I’ve become a father, something that has improved my life in almost every conceivable way. One thing I’m noticing though is that it means that I am now defenceless against that attack of various colds and bugs. This week it was the turn of influenza, meaning I was in bed for much of the week.

Yes, I did try to calm the fever mainly by imbibing herbal teas. And yes, Deutsche Welle’s Rachel Stewart has done a funny video on how Germans respond to getting sick.

Nonetheless, I had time to look at a proposal that has been described as ‘the media bombshell of the year’. It is not every day that the head of a public broadcaster with a €7 billion budget suggests that perhaps that broadcaster shouldn’t continue to exist in its current form. But that’s exactly what ARD boss Tom Buhlow did when admitting last week that the German public were falling out of love with their state television channels.

Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

The ARD’s reputation has c…