With a vote of nine to five*, the Advisory Board of Germany’s public broadcaster Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) on Friday blocked the contract extension of the TV station’s current editor-in-chief Nikolaus Brender, raising serious concerns of political interference at the public broadcaster.

Markus Schächter, ZDF’s director-general, had requested that Brender’s contract be extended by the usual five years, stating that Brender, a staunchly independent journalist, was the best man for the job.

However, the broadcaster’s highly-politicised Advisory Board – which is heavily weighted in favour of the union of Christian democratic parties – today rejected Schächter’s nomination of Brender.

Roland Koch, Prime Minister of the German State of Hesse and the ZDF Advisory Board member who allegedly organised the majority to vote against Schächter’s stated choice of editor-in-chief, has stated that falling viewing figures for certain ZDF broadcasts were behind his decision.

Koch’s decision to go against the express desire of ZDF’s director-general has, however, raised accusations of political meddling in the public media in an attempt to remove a journalist who refused to buckle to political pressure.

In its online edition, der Spiegel, a popular weekly news magazine, stated that the Advisory Board’s decision showed that “prime ministers have the power to remove editors-in-chief of public broadcasters.”

IPI Director David Dadge said: “This is an appalling decision that reeks of political interference. The Advisory Board’s decision to reject Markus Schächter’s choice of editor-in-chief will reverberate for some time to come, with ZDF’s ability to act independently of political interference now in serious doubt.”

*CORRECTION (01.12.09): The Advisory Board vote in fact voted seven to seven, not nine to five as stated above. This meant, however, that the nine vote majority needed for a contract extension was not reached.