The technical director of the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation has been criticized for her generous use of a company car – paid for from broadcasting contributions – and her part-time work on the supervisory board of a steel company, which was paid for with 68,000 euros. Now the BR director is defending her director.
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Broadcast contribution: BR director defends technical director.
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Katja Wildermuth, the director of Bavarian Radio, has defended her technical director Birgit Spanner-Ulmer against criticism. A few days ago, in the course of the Patricia Schlesinger scandal, which affects rbb and not BR, it became known that Birgit Spanner-Ulmer, Technical Director of Bayerischer Rundfunk, has access to an Audi A7 with two paid drivers and in addition a Ford Mondeo station wagon is made available as an additional vehicle. According to BILD, the technical director earns 266,000 euros a year. The drivers not only chauffeur the technology director between her home in Eichstätt and her place of work in Munich, but also on private trips. The Mondeo, in turn, is available for cases in which the technology director wants to be on the road without a chauffeur. The taxpayers’ association sees this as an example of “expenditure items that have grown historically”, the necessity of which “should be urgently questioned”.
Wildermuth now says that this criticism is unfounded. The BR quotes his boss as follows: “According to the director, logistical and working time legal circumstances suggest that both driver and car are available alternately. It was incorrectly reported that there were two drivers and a company car, but instead it was about changing drivers and changing vehicles. ” The technical director’s contract dates back to 2012, and Wildermuth claims that all recent contracts with directors no longer have such regulations.
Lucrative part-time job
But there is another problem associated with Birgit Spanner-Ulmer: in addition to her full-time job as technical director at BR, she also sits on the supervisory board of the steel group Salzgitter AG. Spanner-Ulmer received 68,000 euros for this in 2021. Wildermuth explained that her predecessor Ulrich Wilhelm had agreed to this part-time job.
Spanner-Ulmer had assured that she would carry out her duties on the supervisory board on vacation and would not use any of the BR’s resources. However, Wildermuth explained that Spanner-Ulmer wanted to resign from this supervisory board position in spring 2023.
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BR director Katja Wildermuth also commented on the rbb scandal. She was “a bit stunned and angry”.