CDU on culture and media

The CDU wants to secure local newspapers, private broadcasters and movie theaters through reliable conditions, including a subsidy for newspaper delivery in rural areas. The film and games industries and training for media professions are also to be strengthened.

The CDU wants to keep local newspapers and private broadcasters. The state should help deliver newspapers in rural areas. The CDU also wants to support films and video games from the state. Young people in media jobs should get help starting out.

The state media law is to be modernized without adding bureaucracy. Young media professionals are to receive mentoring, scholarships and start-up support, and founding a business is to become easier through co-working spaces and microloans, for example. The CDU is considering a state media academy. Film funding is to be adjusted, and the film academy in Ludwigsburg strengthened. Games are to be treated as a sector of their own in economic development programs. Radio is to switch to DAB+ in partnership with broadcasters, partly to keep the public informed in emergencies. Media education is to be anchored in all forms of education.

The CDU is committed to public broadcasting but wants it to focus more on its core mission. The broadcasting fee is to stay stable, and salaries in leadership positions are to be aligned with the public sector.

The CDU wants to keep public TV and radio. The broadcasters should stick to their main job. They should report more from the region. The broadcasting fee should not go up.

According to the platform, people should be able to trust public broadcasting again. To that end the CDU wants more diverse content and more regional reporting. Full disclosure of costs and use of every savings opportunity are meant to keep the fee stable. Pay for executives is to follow public-sector standards in the future.

The CDU supports a levy on the online advertising of large platforms, designed to comply with EU law. The revenue is to go exclusively to media infrastructure, diversity and quality journalism.

Big internet companies earn a lot from ads. The CDU wants them to pay a levy on that. The money should go to media and good journalism. This should make competition fairer.

The levy is to be technology-neutral and apply only to large platforms. The money is earmarked for media infrastructure, diversity and quality journalism. The CDU justifies the plan with fair competition for domestic media as well as plurality of opinion and democratic stability.

The CDU wants to draw up a statewide cultural strategy that secures arts and culture and provides long-term planning for preserving and building cultural venues. Every child should have the chance to sing in a choir or learn an instrument.

The CDU wants a plan for culture in the state. Theaters, museums and other cultural buildings should be kept. Every child should be able to learn an instrument or sing in a choir. Artists should have less paperwork when they apply for funding.

The strategy is meant to support change in the cultural sector, for instance through digitalization, and to archive digital formats permanently. The CDU backs Heidelberg's bid to become European Capital of Culture. Culture should be easy to access everywhere in the state and for all groups, with schools, music schools and amateur music working together. The state's arts funding is to be reviewed for accuracy and efficiency while respecting artistic freedom. Paperwork for individual grants is to be reduced.

The CDU wants to set up an office for the concerns of expellees and ethnic German resettlers. In addition, a research and cultural center focusing on "Germans from Russia" is to be established.

Many people came to the state as expellees or ethnic German resettlers. The CDU wants to appoint a commissioner for them. That is a person who looks after their concerns. Germans from Russia should get a cultural center.

The commissioner would also be responsible for building understanding with the regions of origin. The CDU gives unreserved support to cultural work under Section 96 of the Federal Expellees Act. Together with the Federation of Expellees and the regional associations, the handover to the next generation is to be supported with money and administrative help. Until 2036 the state is to act as a sponsor for Germans from Russia and resettlers from other former Eastern Bloc countries. Social projects are meant to counter old-age poverty among Russian Germans.