German Public Broadcasters Boycott Roger Waters

Roger Waters’ upcoming concerts in Germany won’t be broadcasted by several public TV and radio stations that don’t agree with the musician’s stance toward Israel.  

Kevin Mazur / Getty Images for Desert Trip – Roger Waters
“Desert Trip,” Empire Polo Club, Indio, Calif.

Waters is an outspoken critic of the Israeli government and has joined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against the country. This has earned him accusations of being an anti-Semite in the past – accusations Waters consistently denied throughout his career, always maintaining that his protest is directed exclusively against the Israeli government and its policies.

Nevertheless, he’s now being boycotted himself by several German public broadcasters over the resurfacing accusations.

NDR, WDR, RBB, BR and SWR, all part of Germany’s umbrella organization of public broadcasters ARD and covering various territories of the federalist country, have all chosen different ways of cutting their support for Roger Waters’ German tour dates, which are: Barclaycard Arena Hamburg (May 14), Mercedes-Benz-Arena Berlin (June 1-2), SAP Arena Mannheim (June 4), Lanxess Arena Cologne (June 11) and Olympiahalle Munich (June 13).

The stations dropped plans to promote the shows through various ways, such as ticket lotteries. RBB for example had initially agreed to advertise the Berlin shows. In reaction to the accusations of Waters being an anti-Semite and his support of BDS, the broadcaster changed its mind: “Taking up a clear position here is an important signal for rbb also towards the Jewish communities in Berlin and Brandenburg,” rbb director Patricia Schlesinger said in a statement.

NDR told Pollstar that, following the singer’s “controversial stance,” the station decided not to sign the media partnership with promoter Live Nation. Broadcasting in Germany’s north, NDR would have advertised the Hamburg concert and raffled off tickets. In return, the station’s logos would have appeared on printed documents such as the tickets.

BR was the designated media partner for south Germany, i.e. the Olympiahalle show in Munich. While the station initially planned to present the concert on one of its channels, Bayern 2, it felt that “a clear signal” was called for. It still plans to “journalistically and critically” report about the concert.

WDR said it had been receiving critical voices in particular from Jewish citizens about the broadcaster’s media partnership with Roger Waters, who went public with actions directed agains Israel in the past. Through canceling the media partnership, WDR director Tom Buhrow intends to send a signal of understanding to the the Jewish communities. 

Concert promoter Marek Lieberberg, CEO of Live Nation GSA, described the media’s reaction to Waters as “absolutely ridiculous” in an interview with Mannheimer Morgen.

He said that he and Waters had talked about the artist’s views in the past, after Lieberberg had pointed out that one of Waters’ show gimmicks – an inflatable Pink Floyd pig carrying various symbols, including the Star of David – would “legitimately raise critical questions.”

However, Lieberberg also emphasized that he separates between personal opinion and artistic work.

“The catalogue of Roger Waters and Pink Floyd is and will remain ingenious. On the other hand he has a dubious private opinion about Israel, he openly is a member of a boycott movement that I totally reject. But I cannot and don’t want to deny his right to freedom of opinion!”

He added that if the public broadcasters wanted to fight anti-Semitism, they should also point out the “partially bloodthirsty anti-Semitic theories” of people such as Luther or Wagner, who are a regular part of their program. In contrast, the artistic work of Roger Waters was “neither anti-Semitic nor anti-Jewish.”