570 FRANK BÖSCH AND CHRISTOPH CLASSEN
especially the conservative side began to demand more equity in what
were sometimes denunciating campaigns.^75 The fee for radio and televi-
sion that was set by the government proved to be a key way to exercise
political pressure on the stations, especially because the expansion of
television programming, and color TV in particular, was very expensive,
which meant that it could not be fi nanced through the limited advertising
income of the stations alone. The conservative camp’s attempt to smash
the large public broadcasting station in the north, the NDR, failed in 1980
merely for formal legal reasons.
Ultimately, this contest for political infl uence over radio and televi-
sion in West Germany led to structural changes with far-reaching con-
sequences after the government changed hands in 1982, namely the
opening of the fi eld to private radio and television companies. When
the private television channels PKS (which was later renamed as SAT.1)
and RTL-plus started in January 1984 (initially as part of a regional and
temporary “pilot cable project”), it put an end to the monopoly of non-
commercial radio and television programming. Despite the resistance
of the Social Democrats and the churches, who warned of the dangers
of private channels to the bitter end, there was no turning back.^76 In
addition to the Christian Democrats, it was primarily the publishing and
advertising sectors that had campaigned for commercial programming,
which was a source of potential profi t for these branches. But it was
actually more the availability of new distribution technology such as
broadband cable and satellite television off ering additional transmission
options that made it seem necessary to expand the number of channels
in the country.^77
The political infl uence on radio broadcasting, and in particular on
television as the then leading medium, was articulated in the plural and
federal political system of the Federal Republic in a proportional manner
via negotiation between the political camps. It diff ered according to the
concrete political constellations in each federal state. In particular, per-
sonnel management functioned as a kind of preemptive form of program-
ming policy. Furthermore, there was an important corrective in place to
counteract such practices, namely the judgments on radio and television
cases that had been passed down by the Federal Constitutional Court
since 1961. Consequently, the type and scope of political infl uence over
these media diff ered fundamentally from the situation in the centralized
GDR, where it was virtually set in stone that the media was supposed to
function as an instrument for securing the SED’s monopoly on power.
Despite the consistency of this point, however, the system through which
the party controlled these media did adapt to changing circumstances
that came about in the GDR. Yet, there was no liberalization involved in