German TV can be quite frustrating for an LGBT audience. More or less all you get to see are straight characters with very few exceptions once in a while. Sure, there are the dailies with the LGBT characters but for reasons of quality I would rather neglect them at this point.
So it was quite a step forward when in November 2008 the first German dedicated LGBT TV station started airing its program. The station, called TIMM – Television, Internet, Media for Men –claimed “We love Men.” Too bad that, apparently, German men didn’t like TIMM as much as the TV station liked us. In April, the station entered bankruptcy and ever since stopped airing its program over satellite and cable.
So how could this happen after decades of gay German men complaining that mainstream TV did not, or at least not on a regular basis, dedicate to their interests? The station was run as non-pay TV depending more or less solely on commercials. The managers of TIMM did not really have a choice because pay TV is a miserable business in Germany where several investors have gone bankrupt over it. That is quite a difference to the situation of the U.S. TV station here! or Logo. In Germany, a niche audience is not willing to pay for a program which is aimed at their specific needs. But why is that the case?
The debate after the announced bankruptcy offers two views: a gay and a straight one. The gay perception is that the TV station itself is a good idea yet the way it was run was not appealing enough. Hardly any of the shows were actually produced for a German audience. The vast majority of the program was bought from abroad. You may want to argue that LGBT-related issues are somewhat universal. And yes, I totally agree that LGBT stories are universal but as I previously wrote in another post, it is about how you tell the story, about how you reach your audience and respect regional differences. For example, Noah’s Arc surely was an entertaining show, but the plot was simply not close enough to the German audience for anybody to identify with the show and actually keep watching it. I guess Frankfurt and L.A. are separated by more than just 6,000 miles. In contrast, the few shows that were actually produced in and for Germany enjoyed quite positive reception both by critics and the audience.
The straight argument is that the LGBT community does indeed feel comfortable with the program they are offered by the general TV stations. It was written that “we” had finally arrived in the mainstream media with LGBT characters addressing us as an audience. A special niche has become obsolete, and so on. The whole discussion culminated in the finding that LGBT emancipation had come to an end altogether.
In my view, the discussion about the bankruptcy of TIMM shows one point very clearly. While the LGBT community still sees a need for specialized media offerings due to the fact that the mainstream does not offer certain content, the general public considers our struggle of acceptance as over. This is similar to the annual return of the Pride discussion. Do we still really need Pride? While you will find very few members of our community say that Pride has become an anachronism, a large proportion of the general population will tell you that LGBT has made it in the middle of our society and we don’t need to raise awareness for us anymore.
This is a bit of a worrying development to me because it nicely demonstrates that according to the wider public opinion the LGBT community has enough rights already. The general tenor seems to be: “We gave you enough already, so shut up and welcome to the mainstream.” Quite displaced is this point of view, since hate crimes still happen on a weekly basis. Last week, in Berlin a gay man was stabbed in the back for holding hands with his boyfriend. This incident has only been reported by LGBT media. The mainstream media remained silent. Once again: Welcome.
What do you think about specialized media? Do we still need them or are you satisfied with the attention mainstream media pay to our interests?
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