Tagesschau (Germany)

History

Tagesschau (literally "Day's Show", or loosely "(Re)view of the Day"; a play on the term Wochenschau, the weekly newsreel formerly shown in cinemas) is both the oldest and the most watched news program on German television. The first edition was transmitted on Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (North-Western German Broadcasting) on 26 December 1952. Initially broadcast three times a week, the programme expanded in 1956 to air Monday to Saturday, with Sunday editions beginning in 1961. The nightly 8-pm edition of Tagesschau is watched by up to 10 million viewers, equivalent to a 33% audience reach. Currently, the bulletin is produced by NDR (Northern German Broadcasting) through ARD-aktuell (the ARD's news department) from its studios in Hamburg.

The main 15-minute bulletin is broadcast at 20:00 CET or CEST (08:00 pm CET or CEST) each evening with shorter bulletins broadcast throughout the day. The end of the 20:00 bulletin, at 20:15, marks the beginning of prime time on German television. An attempt by commercial station Sat.1 in the late 1990s to begin their prime time schedule at 20:00 was so unsuccessful that it was discontinued after only a few weeks.

In 1978, the late edition of Tagesschau was replaced by Tagesthemen (Subjects of the Day or "Themes of the Day"), a half-hour programme featuring more in-depth reports, analysis, and commentary. The programme continues to air at 22:15 each evening. A late-night, magazine-style programme, Nachtmagazin (Night Magazine), airs at around 00:30. A weekly review programme entitled Wochenspiegel (Mirror of the Week) was produced by the Tagesschau production team and aired on Sundays around lunch time. The program was axed on August 24, 2014 in a major reshuffle.

The program's trademark continues to be the eight o'clock chime followed by a recorded announcement, spoken by Claudia Urbschat-Mingues, "Hier ist das Erste Deutsche Fernsehen mit der Tagesschau" ("This is First German Television with the Tagesschau"). The Tagesschau theme music has remained the same since 1956, although the arrangement has been modernized several times, most recently in 2014 by Hans Zimmer.

On July 25, 1988 the Tagesschau was imminent to be cancelled due to a warning strike organized by the broadcasting union RFFU. This blackout would have been for the first (and only) time in its history, but the Rundschau from Bavaria, produced by Bayerisches Fernsehen in Munich, helped out as a substitute program.

Tagesschau aired its 20,000th broadcast on 31 December 2010.

Chief anchors

1964–1987 Karl-Heinz Köpcke (newsreader from 1959)

1987–1995 Werner Veigel (newsreader from 1966)

1995–1999 Dagmar Berghoff (newsreader from 1976)

2000–2004 Jo Brauner (newsreader from 1974)

2004–present Jan Hofer (newsreader from 1985)

Current presenters

Ellen Arnhold, since 1987

Jens Riewa, since 1994

Claus-Erich Boetzkes, since 1995

Susanne Daubner, since 1999

Thorsten Schröder, since 2000

Susanne Holst, since 2001

Astrid Vits, since 2004

Michail Paweletz, since 2004

Tarek Youzbachi, since 2004

Judith Rakers, since 2005

Linda Zervakis, since 2010

Former presenters

in alphabetical order

Marc Bator, 2001-2013

Ina Bergmann, 1997–2001

Dagmar Berghoff, 1976–1999

Jo Brauner, 1974–2004

Elfi Marten-Brockmann, 1981–1984

Lothar Dombrowski, 1967–1974

Laura Dünnwald, 2001-2010

Klaus Eckert, 1978–1983

Karl Fleischer, 1960–1994

Caroline Hamann, 2007-2009

Jan Thilo Haux

Eva Herman, 1989–2007

Georg Hopf, 1975–1985

Horst Jaedicke

Silke Jürgensen, 2002–2005

Karl-Heinz Köpcke 1959–1987

Franz Laake, 1988–1993

Siegmar Ruhmland, 1960–1963

Diether von Sallwitz

Manfred Schmidt, 1962–1964

Robert Schröder, 1988

Susan Stahnke, 1992–1999

Wilhelm Stöck, 1965–1984

Martin Svoboda

Harry Teubner, 1978–1980

Martin Thon

Werner Veigel, 1966–1995

Cay Dietrich Voss, 1952–1962

Wilhelm Wieben, 1972–1998

Daniela Witte, 1985–1988

Günter Wiatrek, 1974–1975

Claus Wunderlich, 1959–1962

Awards

1987: Goldene Kamera best TV anchorwoman for Dagmar Berghoff

1997: Goldenes Kabel Publikumspreis in Silber for the best news broadcast

2000: Deutscher Comedypreis special award for unvoluntary comedy

2003: Bayerischer Filmpreis special award for the best editorial teams during 50 years

2012: Grimme Online Award for the "Tagesschau" app

2014: Eyes and Ears Award for the new studio design, animations and grafic techniques.

Plurality of perspectives lacking

The long-term study of the Otto Brenner Stiftung by Hans-Jürgen Arlt and Wolfgang Storz from March 2010 on "Business Journalism during the crisis - The mass media handling of the financial market policy" analyzed working methods of the news broadcasts from 1999 to fall 2009, especially in news formats like Tagesschau and Tagesthemen. The study arrives at the conclusion that these formats failed during the crisis, due to the editorial team's lack of different perspectives, focusing solely on representatives of the German government, banks, some scientists and their points of view. "This narrowing of perspective leads to severe losses of reality which is to be considered as serious journalistic misconduct".

Bias (in covering the Ukraine-Crisis 2013/2014)

In September 2014, following the critical review of the editorial council (Programmbeirat), ARD-aktuell stated: "Criticism of our news-coverage respecting the Ukraine has caused an echo on a hitherto unprecedented scale".