Years ago, Marco Kirchhof caused the biggest fraud scandal in public broadcasting. As production manager of the children’s channel of ARD and ZDF, he had production companies write fictitious invoices and cashed in on a large scale.
The manager caused millions in damage to satisfy his gambling addiction. Now he describes in a book how he allowed fee money to flow into his own pocket. That only worked because there was “no functioning control system”.
The machinations of the ex-production boss were exposed in 2010. He spent over four years behind bars. After the RBB affair, his findings on the public service system seem more relevant than ever.
The wads of money come in packets hidden in DVD cases. A courier brings between 10,000 and 15,000 euros to Marco Kirchhof twice a month. The production manager of the children’s channel from ARD and ZDF, the Kika, calls it “play money”. In fact, these are illegal payments. The sender is the head of a production company in Berlin.
But on his last show, Kirchhof gets nothing. Instead of the banknotes he had hoped for, the television producer only found a greeting card in the discreet packaging. “I can not anymore. I’m sorry,” the Berlin producer wrote to him in October 2010. He exposed the biggest fraud in the history of public broadcasting. And with it Kirchhof.
Less than two months later, Manager Kirchhof ended up in custody. Production companies wrote fictitious invoices for him for a good ten years. He got them through the station, and a significant portion of the money flowed back to Kirchhof. The revision of the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR), which is responsible for children’s television, put the total damage at almost ten million euros.
Gambled GEZ fees at the machines
Kirchhof, addicted to gambling, gambled away the fee money at machines or roulette, flew first class to Las Vegas and rented luxury suites. That only worked because there was “no functioning control system”, Kirchhof now writes in “Where has the money gone?”, his autobiography. He sees a “systemic problem”.
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His book is the story of a player who has nothing left to lose in the media industry. Kirchhof ruthlessly calls himself a “cold-blooded fraudster”. His findings on the public service system, whose weak points he exploited with criminal energy, are all the more credible. He reports on rigid hierarchies and a culture of looking the other way. After the RBB affair, this reads more up-to-date than ever.
Kirchhof spent four and a half years in prison for fraud and bribery, and the subsequent probationary period is now behind him. He filed for personal bankruptcy, and the 55-year-old still owes money to his former employer.
Kirchhof, who had volunteered at East German children’s television, had quickly made a career for MDR. He was one of the pioneers of the children’s channel founded in 1997, famous for the “Teletubbies” or “Bernd, das Brot”.
Kirchhof even had a chance to become the station’s program manager in Erfurt. At the same time, the TV manager slipped deeper and deeper into addiction. According to his own statements, he gambled away up to 40,000 euros on the weekends. “Awaken. Work. vending machines. Crash. And start all over again,” Kirchhof describes his “sick routine”.
TV manager demanded “risk surcharge” for fake bills
According to Kirchhof, the children’s channel was a channel without cameras or its own studios. The makers had to buy everything they needed from external service providers. At the same time, the companies were dependent on public-law contracts. And Kirchhof was the master of the calculations. He literally capitalized on this in his scams. He approved “fake invoices”, as he writes, in exchange for a “risk surcharge”.
The fallen manager later reads in the investigation files that some producers felt they were being blackmailed by him. They were afraid and worried about their orders. At that time, Kirchhof did not perceive any power imbalance, for him it was a matter of give and take, while for him it was going downhill in a “spiral of self-deception and guilt”.
Fraudster was considered a “little magician” in the finances of the Kika
The millionaire fraudster describes exactly the environment in which he moved at Kika for years. Internally, Kirchhof enjoyed an excellent reputation as a “little magician” in financial matters. For example, when it came to exhausting the budget of 40 million euros in order to avoid cuts in the following year. The motto was: “Those who save will be punished.”
Kirchhof reports that he found half a million euros for the farewell party of an outgoing broadcaster boss. For an employee of the next superior, it was monthly money envelopes. From his early days, the ex-head of production also tells of a trip to a technology fair in Las Vegas, donated by a subsidiary of MDR. He frankly describes this as a “bribe with fee money that asked me to work in the big public wheel”.
At about the same time as the fraud scandal surrounding the children’s channel, a scandal involving the then head of entertainment, Udo Foht, shook MDR. The discoverer of Helene Fischer and Florian Silbereisen had received loans from business partners that he did not repay. Only now, years later, did Foht stand trial. Last March he was given a suspended sentence for fraud.
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In contrast, Kirchhof has long since served his sentence. He has not written a tell-all book for a long time. But as a former insider, Kirchhof reveals the rigidity of a system that even the biggest scandals seem to change little. Last but not least, the career paths of some of those responsible speak for this. This year Ralf Ludwig will be the new MDR director. When Kirchhof had cash packages sent to him and cheated the broadcaster out of millions, Ludwig was the chief financial officer of the ARD broadcaster.
Marco Kirchhof: Where has the money gone? My double life with gambling addiction, written with Petra Schwarz, Berlin: Eulenspiegel, 2023, 20 euros.
This article was published on April 20, 2023 and was updated on April 22.