Just as the special report on the storming of the school in the North Caucasus is ending, they run an ad break. One advertiser offers CD collections of church hymns with a note about these terrible times to calm Christian souls, another advertiser offers the folk plays of the Theaterstadl on video cassettes.
Does nobody at ARD have even a shred of sense left in their head? Right after images of dead children, the injured, and terror footage, while the question still hangs in the air about how many children may have been killed there, and while the numbers of injured are climbing, an ad block airs? Could it be in worse taste?
Sorry, but I'm normally only used to this kind of tasteless stuff from the private broadcasters—and I find it extremely tasteless there too. But for the publicly-funded ARD, which is also financed by my GEZ contributions, I consider this outrageous.
Of course, you can't put the entire television program at half-mast all the time. But the greed for advertising revenue should surely take a back seat to common sense at ARD...