New WDR boss: “Our main actor is our program”

Katrin Vernau starts as the new director of the largest ARD broadcaster. She prevailed against several competitors in the WDR director election. These are their plans.

The probably best-known ARD director Tom Buhrow has handed over the management of West German Broadcasting (WDR) to his successor Katrin Vernau. In an interview with the German Press Agency, when asked how she wanted to make herself better known in view of her prominent predecessor, the 51-year-old manager said: “The question is to what extent that is even necessary. Our main actor is our program – and our actors in the program.”

Vernau, who was previously administrative director at WDR and helped out as interim director during the RBB crisis, added: “Of course I will also represent WDR as director – to the extent that this is useful and sensible for the station.”

Stormy times for public broadcasting

The 51-year-old is not a product of public broadcasting, as is common in many other careers in the broadcasting industry. Buhrow brought the manager to WDR as administrative director years ago. She brought with her experience as chancellor of universities and from management consulting. The 51-year-old prevailed in the WDR director election against long-time WDR program director Jörg Schönenborn. It manages WDR, which had around 1.3 billion euros in income from broadcasting fees in 2023.

Public broadcasting with ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio is facing harsh winds in these times. The calls from politicians for more savings and more efficient work became louder. There is a dispute over the amount of the broadcasting fee, which has now reached the Federal Constitutional Court. And WDR itself, with its around 4,000 employees, is also currently rumbling – collective bargaining is underway.

Vernau herself says she will earn less money than her predecessor. The salary of the station manager at the top of the largest ARD broadcaster, which recently totaled more than 400,000 euros, has been the focus of media reports for years because it was the highest in comparison so far. Vernau said in the interview: “WDR will definitely no longer be at the top. And I understand that because the directors’ salaries are in the public eye.” The manager added: “It was already signaled to me during the application process that I would receive around 20 percent less than my predecessor. I accepted that.”

Is there a leftward drift in the WDR editorial team?

In the dpa interview, the new station boss also addressed allegations from recent years that there could be an alleged left-wing drift in the editorial departments at WDR. When asked whether she missed conservative voices on WDR, Vernau said: “At least I have never heard that WDR is too conservative.”

She suggested: “We always have to ask ourselves when inviting talk guests, but also in our reporting: Have we really represented all the perspectives that can be taken on such a topic?” Vernau also mentioned economic reporting. “I am an economist and I often miss the opportunity to look at things from an economic perspective. The connections behind certain conflicts, such as job losses. This is bad for individual people, but there is also an economic reason for it. Explaining this in more detail is something I want to strengthen.”

After the RBB crisis: “I’m still feeling the aftershocks”

Vernau became known nationwide when she helped out in Berlin in autumn 2022 after the ARD broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB) plunged into a deep crisis over allegations of nepotism and waste. As interim director, she cleaned up the station and created a million-dollar savings plan. She also put an end to a million-dollar construction project by her predecessor Patricia Schlesinger.

When asked whether it helped her in the RBB crisis that she was not a child of public broadcasting, Vernau said: “It was certainly easier for me at RBB to make the difficult decisions about omissions from the program because they weren’t my own babies. This is much more difficult for program makers: to leave out something that they may have built up themselves and supported over the years.” The experience in management consulting also helped her.

The RBB scandal also caused major damage to the reputation of public broadcasting. “We are still feeling the aftershocks because we are simply much more under scrutiny and questioned. That’s also a good thing, a lot of things have now started that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, at least at the speed they did.”

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