News items from the August issue of the German Radio-Kurier magazine:
Editorial staff at Deutsche Welle laments a continuous loss in program quality. Many own productions were cancelled, working hours have been lengthened. Meanwhile the majority of the German radio program consists of ARD material that is available free of charge. Many experienced announcers do no longer work for DW after the news announcer shifts have been lengthened from six to more than eight hours without raising the royalties accordingly.
Editorial staff at Deutsche Welle laments a continuous loss in program quality. Many own productions were cancelled, working hours have been lengthened. Meanwhile the majority of the German radio program consists of ARD material that is available free of charge. Many experienced announcers do no longer work for DW after the news announcer shifts have been lengthened from six to more than eight hours without raising the royalties accordingly.
Meanwhile DW started to let interns, editors and other untrained people read the news. It appears that the resulting loss in presentation quality has been taken into account deliberately. A responsible person commented "I got clear instructions" and "it is a rational decision when freelancers are no longer willing to work under such conditions, I think I would have choosen to quit as well". More and more protests from listeners abroad come in. Internal plannings indicate that DW will continue to save costs at the expense of program quality.
Leading personnel of DW shows no interest in the efforts made by programming staff to at least limit the resulting damage. An open letter from the announcers cast remained unanswered so far, only an accusation from a head of department that this would be mobbing has been withdrawn.
Satellite DXer Norbert Schlammer noted since March disruptions of C band reception at Berlin-Schoeneweide, first during office hours and around 3.6 GHz, since June now around the clock and further spreading to the 3.5 ... 3.6 GHz range. Bundesnetzagentur told on his enquiry that this is a new service of an Internet provider. They said that the 3.4 ... 4.2 GHz range is available for terrestrial use now, with satellite reception there "no longer deserving protection" acc. new regulations. The legal department of Bundesnetzagentur promised to provide them soon.
Comment by KL: This is quite remarkable. IBB winds up its Ismaning operations at present, but probably a third party here in Germany will continue the redistribution of their satellite feeds done by the Ismaning station so far, and perhaps transmitter sites here in Germany also still use the Intelsat 907 signal rather than the Hotbird redistribution.
What if they now experience disruptions by new terrestrial applications? Judging from Norbert's report Bundesnetzagentur could simply tell them "your problem, C band is no longer protected". (There are almost certainly other professional users of C band satellite signals here in Germany as well, IBB just specifically mentioned since I'm aware of them.)
(ADDX Radio Kurier News, Kai Ludwig-D, wwdxc BC-DX July 30)
(Source: WWDXC Top News-BC DX #819)
(ADDX Radio Kurier News, Kai Ludwig-D, wwdxc BC-DX July 30)
(Source: WWDXC Top News-BC DX #819)