Everyone who’s lived in Germany for any length of time will have encountered the Rundfunkbeitrag: a quarterly licence fee that’s paid by households to shore up the country’s public broadcasters. 

As soon as you register at a new address, a letter comes in the post to remind you of your obligation to pay the bill – regardless of whether you’ve been watching these TV channels and listening to public radio or not. 

ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio are all funded by these contributions, which are designed to ensure that public broadcasters remain independent and free from political interference.

Though the some €8.2 billion raked in by these broadcasters each year is used more efficiently than by many private broadcasters, the licence fee is failing to cover all the costs incurred by these media behemoths.

The fee has also gone up by just 20 percent over almost two decades, which means a real-term cut in funding for the broadcasters as the increases failed to keep pace with inflation.

READ ALSO: Do I have to pay Germany’s Rundfunkbeitrag?

Against this backdrop, Germany’s Broadcasting Commission has issued a series of recommendations for a sweeping reform of the public broadcasters. 

Alongside cuts to core channels and numerous radio stations, the commission has also raised the spectre of potential increases in the monthly licence fee.

While the plans still need to be voted on at a meeting of state premiers next week, media reports on Thursday gave an inkling of what the overhaul could look like.

This is what could be on the horizon for Germany’s public broadcasters and their viewers. 

Are the license fees set to go up? 

For the meantime, no – but there could be.

Originally, the commission responsible for setting the fee – the KEF – had recommended a rise of 58 cents per month from the start of 2025. This would have taken the licence fee from €18.36 to €18.94 per month.

However, the latest version of the plans states that the licence fee will not increase from January 2025, but will initially remain at the current amount of €18.36 per month.

The question of whether to increase the fee will depend on the savings accrued by a number of planned cuts to services over the coming months. 

According to federal state leaders, the broadcasters aren’t expected to file any formal complaints if the increase in fees is suspended for now.

That may be because the proposals contain a mechanism for increasing contributions more in the future, by linking them to price developments such as inflation. 

What kind of cuts are we talking about?

Big ones, by the sounds of things. Following a meeting on Wednesday, the Broadcasting Commission announced that at least 20 radio programmes and around half of the ten TV channels would be abolished.

This would cut the number of channels down to around five or six and the number of radio programmes to around 50.

The cuts were confirmed on Thursday by Rhineland-Palatinate state secretary for media Heike Raab (SPD) and her Saxon counterpart Conrad Clemens (CDU), both of whom sit on the Broadcasting Commission. 

According to Raab and Clemens, the broadcasters will be able to decide themselves which channels to get rid of.

In the case of special-interest channels such as Arte, 3sat, Kinderkanal, Phoenix, ZDF neo, One or tagesschau24, four to five channels could be cut.

READ ALSO: Six ways to fall in love with learning German again

There are also plans to limit and reduce the sports rights budgets of ARD and ZDF, which would restrict the number of sports events that the broadcasters could air in the future.

When will we know more?

So far, the proposals haven’t yet been agreed on by the all-important state leaders – but they are set to meet next week to discuss a way forward.

If they greenlight the plans, a two-week public hearing will take place online to enable licence-fee payers to have their say. 

A final decision will then be made at the State Premiers’ Conference in Leipzig on October 24th and 25th.

After that, all 16 state parliaments will have to approve the reform package, which could then come into force in the summer of 2025.