ABSTRACT
In 1961, fifteen years after the end of World War II and just twelve years after the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Constitutional Court had to clarify with whom the legislative competence for broadcasting in Germany lay, the national legislator or the Länder. 1 In addition to confirming the legislative competence of the Länder, the court used the occasion for general remarks on the role of broadcasting in a federal State and particularly stressed the necessity of providing diversity. The court emphasized that at that time, due to the scarcity of airwaves, a public service structure was best suited to fulfill this task. In the German public broadcasting system, the representation of the diverse social interests is supposed to be internally ensured through the Broadcasting Council where the relevant groups of society are represented. That is why Germany had a monopoly of public service broadcasting until the mid-1980s when new technologies like cable and satellite provided for extended transmission capacities and thus for external diversity.
