This document is downloaded from DR‑NTU (https://dr.ntu.edu.sg) Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Broadcasting sound archives in the Federal Republic of Germany Kresing‑Wulf, Felix 1989 Kresing‑Wulf, F. (1989). Broadcasting sound archives in the Federal Republic of Germany. In AMIC‑Deutsche Welle Workshop on Documentation and Archival Techniques : Singapore, Nov 28‑Dec 7, 1989. Singapore: Asian Mass Communication Research and Information Centre. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/91507 Downloaded on 29 Sep 2021 12:42:51 SGT ATTENTION: The Singapore Copyright Act applies to the use of this document. Nanyang Technological University Library Broadcasting Sound Archives In The Federal Republic Of Germany By Felix Kresing-Wulf Paper No.16 ATTENTION: The Singapore Copyright Act applies to the use of this document. Nanyang Technological University Library Broadcasting Sound Archives in the Federal Republic of Germany Before starting with my review of the broadcasting sound archives in the Federal Republic of Germany I'd like to give you a brief introduction to the structure of West German broadcasting. This structure is based on the results of the Second World War. After the German surrender in May 1945 the country was decentralized. Ten states, the so-called Lander, including Berlin were created. Soon the Allies started broadcasting in their zones of occupied Germany. In 1948 those stations, which had been founded by the American, the British and the French military governments, were transferred to the responsibility of the German states. Today there are nine regional broadcasting systems, which produce up to five daily radio programms of 18 or more hours for the citizens of their regions. They also contribute productions to the First German Television which was established as a nation-wide television channel in 1953. The number of contributions to this channel depend on the regional station size. The largest, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), provides 25 percent, while the smallest stations, Saarl&ndischer Rundfunk (SR) and Radio Bremen (RB), each contribute 3 percent. Furthermore these broa'dcasting corporations produce programs for the regional third television channel. All of them are organized as corporations with control in the hands of representatives of the public. They are financed mainly by the fees of the listeners and viewers of their region and secondarily by the charges for the commercials, which they are allowed to broadcast in a strictly limited time. The Deutsche Welle and the Deutschlandfunk were founded in 1960 under federal law. The Deutsche Welle broadcasts in 34 languages on shortwave to countries around the world. The transcription services of the Deutsche Welle produce various radio and television programms, which can be ordered and transmitted by foreign broadcasting stations free of charge. The Deutschlandfunk, broadcasting on the long and medium waves, covers Europe in 13 languages. The Deutsche Welle is financed entirely from the federal budget, similar to the external services of other countries, while the Deutschlandfunk gets 50 percent of its budget from the regional broadcasting corporations. All of these 11 regional or federal broadcasting corporations are members of the Association of the Public Broadcasting Corporations of the Federal Republic of Germany (ARD), which was founded in 1950 in order to strengthen and to coordinate the cooperation of these radio systems. The RIAS (Radio in the American sector of Berlin), which was founded and for a long period funded by the USA, hasn't come under full German control, although it has been mainly financed by the federal budget for several years. Sa the RIAS hasn't become a full member of the ARD up to now, but its representatives take part in all conferences of the ATTENTION: The Singapore Copyright Act applies to the use of this document. Nanyang Technological University Library ARD as non-voting members. The Second German Television (ZDF) was founded in 1961 as a joint institution of the West German states. Although it's also a public broadcasting corporation, the ZDF didn't become a member of the ARD, because one of the intentions of establishing a second German television channel was the desire for competition in making good programs. Since 1981, when the Federal Constitutional Court decided that the public corporations should no longer have a monopoly on broadcasting because of essential developments in transmitting techniques, many private broadcasting companies have been founded in all parts of Germany. State Broadcast Regulatory Offices were established, which are responsible for giving the necessary broadcasting licenses. Coming back to the topic I want to talk about this afternoon, I have to confess that I can only talk about the sound archives of the public broadcasting organizations. Only a few of the major private broadcasting companies have set up their own sound archives up to now. I don't know anything about these sound archives, because there hasn't been any collegial cooperation. All of the 13 public broadcasting corporations which I have introduced to you have several archives and libraries. Firstly I would like to explain to you the organizational structure of these departments. You may possibly think that there aren't any differences in the organizational structure of these archives, but due to several distinctions in the historical development of the broadcasting corporations various organizational models were worked out. In most of the broadcasting corporations the sound archives are parts of an overall archives and documentation department. Such departments were created at Deutschlandfunk (DLF), Hessischer Rundfunk (HR), RIAS, Saarlandischer Rundfunk (SR), Sender Freies Berlin (SFB), Siiddeutscher Rundfunk (SDR), Sudwestfunk (SWF), Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) and Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF). Beside the sound archives the libraries, the press archives and in some cases also the television archives are integrated in these departments. At the Bayrischer Rundfunk (BR), Deutsche Welle, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) and Radio Bremen (RB) the various archives and libraries work as separate units. The size of the various sound archives depends on the size of the broadcasting corporation'itself and the number of programms, which are produced and transmitted daily. The Deutsche Welle, the BR, the NDR and WDR have the "biggest sound archives with up to 40 employees. In the contrast the staff of the sound archives of the smallest German broadcasting corporations, Radio Bremen and the Saarlandische Rundfunk, are less than 10 people. The next figure shows, that the majority of the German broadcasting sound archives, whether they are parts of an overall department or not, belong to the radio division. Only the sound archives of the WDR and the ZDF, which are included in their archives and documentation departments, ATTENTION: The Singapore Copyright Act applies to the use of this document. Nanyang Technological University Library -a— are integrated in the administration division. In most of the broadcasting corporations the heads of the archives departments or" of the separate sound archives have to report to the director of radio, in some cases to the programme supervisor (BR, RB, SR) and in three broadcasting corporations (NDR, WDR, ZDF) to -the heads of other departments. Because the internal - organizational structure of the broadcasting sound archives varies greatly, it's impossible for me to compare them in this matter, but I can give you some examples. The sound archives of the Deutsche Welle, which employs 40 persons, is divided into 4 sections : the music documentation, the spoken word documentation, the information section and the preservation section. The sound archives of the HR with employees consists of the sections music documentation, music library, preservation (temporary and long-term storage) and spoken word documentation, which is combined with the historical archives. Leaving this topic and coming to the problems of cataloguing, I'd like to introduce to you the ARD cataloguing manuals for . spoken word and for music recordings. These cataloguing rules, originally set up in 1970's, have been obligatory since 1988 in a revised edition for all sound archives of the members of ARD and for€ the sound archives of the ZDF. The creation of these manuals, which lasted, many years, was necessary to improve the cooperation of the broadcasting archives. The rules considerably differ from the rules of the German National Library, which are used by all German public libraries and by most of the scientific libraries, because the specific needs of the programme-making and of the technical departments of the broadcasting stations would*nt have been fullfilled., if the library manuals had been adopted. The main advantage of elaborating an obligatory manual for, the cataloguing of music recordings was the possibility to establish a joint institution of ARD and ZDF, which is responsible for the formal description of all commercial music records with light and folk music. This institution, called the central record cataloguing department (ZSK), was founded in 1978 as a new department of the German Broadcasting Archives (DRA) in Frankfurt. It is financed by the 12 broadcasting corporations of the ARD (including RIAS) and by the ZDF. All German broadcasting corporations have signed a contract with the German branch of the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI). This contract guarantees, that all sound archives and the central record cataloguing department get one copy of each record, which is published on the German market. Before the ZSK was founded, each of the broadcasting sound archives had to catalogue the same records. Now the ZSK is making the formal description corresponding to the rules of the ARD/ZDF cataloguing manual as quick as possible and delivering the data to the 13 sound archives. Since 1984 these data have also been provided to the Swiss Radio Corporation, which pays an annual fee for it. So a lot of money could be saved by establishing this joint institution. ATTENTION: The Singapore Copyright Act applies to-4 the- use of this document.