Share your senses

1 October 2009
week
Share your senses
Christoph Mainusch on Alpha TV’s new line-up
Germany
The Netherlands
RTL Television and Teamworx
to film the Hindenburg disaster
RTL Nederland launches
Spelsalon.nl
Finland
France
FremantleMedia strikes
major deal with MTV 3
RTL Radio France gathers
22,000 jobs offers in one day
40
COVER:
Alpha stars celebrating at the programme presentation on 24 September.
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“We are proud…
and prepared”
Christoph Mainusch
Alpha TV presented its new programming for the
upcoming season. Backstage asked Christoph
Mainusch, the new CEO of Alpha, what viewers
can expect.
Greece - 1 October 2009
Many of the famous faces at Alpha attended the
special event on 24 September at the Egli cinema
at the Zappeion. Presenter Katerina Karavatou,
who usually presents the gossip show
Kous-Kous, hosted the programme presentation.
Many of the channel’s major and minor stars lent
her their support, taking the stage to add their
own amusing touches to the evening.
Commercial Director Costas Charitsis and
Alpha’s new CEO, Christoph Mainusch, touched
briefly on the goals the station has set for the
2009/10 season. Mainusch addressed the
audience in fluent Greek and stressed that the
main objective is to cement Alpha’s position
among the three top TV channels, a standing
which was achieved over the second half of last
year thanks to the radical and highly effective
changes that were made in the access prime
time slot (18:00 to 21:00), which meant moving
the news from 20:00 to 19:00 and introducing the
brand-new Kati Psinetai (Come Dine With Me).
Alpha TV’s audience share in the commercial
target group increased each month from January
2009 (12.4 per cent) to June 2009 (15.8 per cent),
finishing the first half of the year with an average
audience share of 14.0 per cent (2008: 12.7 per
cent).
The channel wishes to maintain this course of
action, by keeping key shows such as: Kafes me
thn Eleni (Coffee With Eleni), Kous-Kous, Fatus
Olus, Mes stin kali hara (In A Good Mood) and
Pame Paketo (You’ve Got A Package). Mainusch
also made special mention of Lakis Lazopoulos,
thanking him for deciding to stay at Alpha TV for
two more years. Lakis Lazopoulos host the
famous Al Tsantiri News which regularly attract a
total audience share of 50 per cent.
Apart from its perennially popular shows, Alpha
has introduced some new ones, like Pano stin
ora (On Time) and Deste tous (Tie Them) and will
introduce some more in the future, such as the
Chart Show and Ten, which will run alternately
every Sunday and originated from the famous
German TV shows Die ultimative Chart Show and
Die
Zehn
which
are
broadcast
on
RTL Television.
Now, as the new season begins, Backstage took
the opportunity to ask Christoph Mainusch about
the future development of Alpha TV.
How does the Greek market differ from the
Croatian market?
Greece and Croatia are both small TV territories,
but the Greek TV market is more competitive due
to a larger number of channels.
How would you rate the economic situation in
Greece at the moment?
Like in other European countries it’s a very
difficult situation. But I believe the situation has
bottomed out and we will see a slight recovery in
2010.
What are Alpha’s strengths? Where is there
room for improvement?
Alpha is a channel dominated by local light
entertainment programmes. We have three very
successful programme brands, Al Tsantiri News,
Pame Paketo and Kafes me thn Eleni. With the
introduction of international formats like Come
Dine With Me and The Farmer Wants A Wife we
have sharpened our profile as a family-oriented
full-programme broadcaster. Rescheduling the
main news to 19:00 was the first step in
improving our scheduling and programme flow.
We are well on our good way and the channel
increased its prime time ratings between January
and June this year by 67 per cent.
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Clément Schwebig, COO of Alpha TV, Lakis Lazopoulos, presenter of Al Tsantiri News, and Alpha CEO Christoph Mainusch (from left to right)
How are you planning to strategically position
Alpha in the upcoming season?
Keep the best and introduce the successes of
tomorrow. We will sharpen our image as an
entertainment programme built on our two pillars:
strong daytime shows and serious and reliable
news but presented in a different way, to focus
on viewer interests.
Early this year, several formats that are doing
well in Germany were established with similar
success on the Greek market. Will they be
followed by others?
Formats like Come Dine With Me and Kitchen
Nightmares have changed the market
completely. Actually we surprised our
competition with these enormous successes. So
we will continue to introduce shows like Gia
logariasmo sas (Get Out Of Debt) with Nikos
Samoilis and Agrotis monos psahni (The Farmer
Wants A Wife) with Sissy Christidou, which will
run every Wednesday, as well as The Hotel
Inspector and Beat Your Host as our event show
from next spring.
What is the competitive landscape like? Have
your competitors already reacted to Alpha’s
repositioning?
They are still in shock but I’m afraid they will
recover soon. Some will try to copy our
successes. We are proud… and prepared.
What’s your first impression of your new
place of work?
It’s a great company with very nice and
motivated people and has a good team spirit – all
the prerequisites for success. It won’t be easy
but we will make it.
Alpha TV’s next season runs under the heading “Share Your Senses”
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Four Emmy Awards for American Idol
American Idol nabbed four Emmy Awards at this year’s ceremony – more than ever
before. Also in September, Mogadischu was named best German TV movie, while
Radio 538 was pronounced the best Dutch radio station.
Luxembourg - 30 September 2009
For his work on American Idol, Bruce Gowers
won for ‘Best Directing’ at the 61st Prime Time
Emmy Awards on 21 September at Los
Angeles’s Nokia Theatre. He prevailed over
such productions as Late Show With David
Letterman, Real Time With Bill Maher, The Daily
Show With Jon Stewart and Saturday Night
Live hosted by Justin Timberlake. Earlier,
American Idol had won three awards in the
categories ‘Outstanding Lighting Direction’,
‘Outstanding Art Direction For Variety, Music or
Non-fiction Programming’ and ‘Outstanding
Technical Direction’ at the Creative Arts Emmy
Awards. This is the highest number of Emmy
Awards the show has received in a single year.
The Teamworx production about the October
1977 hijacking of Lufthansa’s ‘Landshut’
aircraft won the top German TV Award
(Deutscher Fernsehpreis). The nine judges
bestowed the year’s most important prize on
Mogadischu. Apart from Teamworx CEO and
Executive
Producer
Nico
Hofmann and Mogadischu
producers Gabriela Sperl and
Jürgen Schuster, the award
honors the movie’s director
Roland
Suso
Richter,
Maurice
Philip
Remy
(script), Holly Fink (camera) –
and of course its stars Thomas
Kretschmann, Nadja Uhl, Jürgen
Tarrach and Christian Berkel.
The team of Mogadischu receiving the German TV Award
RTL Television’s Der Lehrer (The Teacher)
prevailed against the series Franzi and Lasko –
another RTL programme – in the “Best Series”
category. Der Lehrer premiered at the
beginning of August. Finally, RTL Television
won the award for “Best Comedy” with TVHelden whose team prevailed over Oliver
Welke’s Heute Show and Hape
Kerkeling’s fictional character
‘Horst Schlämmer’.
Meanwhile, Radio 538 was the
big winner at this year’s Marconi
Awards. Having entered the
running with five nominations, the
Dutch radio station went home with
three awards: for ‘Best Radiozender’,
the ‘Best Programma’ in the Top 40,
and for Moderator Edwin Evers as ‘Best
Presentator’. The Marconi Awards are
the Netherlands’ only radio awards
and are presented annually in a
number of categories. In 1998,
Edwin Evers had received his
first Marconi Award for Evers
Staat Op.
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Nina Haun, Casting Director at UFA,
receives the EUR 10,000 German Casting
Award 2009 for her casting of five recent
big-screen and TV films. The prize will be
presented on 3 October 2009 at the
Cologne Conference TV Film Festival. Haun
was honoured for finding the “right” cast
members for the films Alle anderen (Maren
Ade), So glücklich war ich noch nie
(Alexander Adolph), Hilde (Kai Wessel), Über
den Tod hinaus and Willkommen zuhause
(Andreas Senn in both).
RTL
Television
scored
numerous
nominations for the German Comedy
Awards. Cindy aus Marzahn und die jungen
Wilden and TV-Helden were both nominated
for ‘Best Comedy Show’. Nominees for
‘Best Comedy Series’ include the series Der
Lehrer, which recently won a German TV
Award, and Doctor’s Diary. The RTL
Television series 4 Singles is in the running
for ‘Best Comedy Sketch’. RTL Television’s
World of Comedy is nominated for ‘Best
Comedy Event’. Böse Mädchen has hopes
of winning an award for ‘Best Hidden
Camera’, and two formats aired on RTL
Television are in the running for ‘Best
Comedy Show’: Schizophren – Ich wollte
‘ne Prinzessin sein by Cindy aus Marzahn and
Verschmitzt, the stand-up routine by comedian
Ralf Schmitz. Diana Amft, who plays the
leading role in Doctor’s Diary, was nominated
as Best Actress. RTL will broadcast the
glamorous gala event on 23 October from
21:15.
Two productions by the UFA subsidiary
Teamworx have received nominations for
this year’s Prix Europa, one of the foremost
Continental European competitions for TV,
Radio and Internet. The TV production
Mogadischu was nominated for an award in
the ‘Best TV Fiction Programme of the Year
2009’ category. The TV movie Einer bleibt
sitzen starring the talented young actors
Volker Bruch, Florian Jahr, Trystan Pütter
and Karoline Schuch is a contender in the
‘TV Fiction’ category. The Prix Europa was
called into being in 1987 by the Council of
Europe and the European Cultural Trust. The
award is presented in nine categories, and
comes with EUR 6,000 and the official Prix
Europa cup in each case.
Nina Haun
Pietshow, a Grundy UFA production, was a
nominee at this year’s Festival Cinema Tous
Ecrans, which administers a ‘Web Series’
award for innovative new-media formats. The
awards are presented in November.
Pietshow
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The greatest aviation disaster of its time
Teamworx is co-producing Hindenburg, a spectacular two-part movie about the
Hindenburg disaster on 6 May 1937, with RTL Television and EOS Entertainment.
Germany - 25 September 2009
Scriptwriters Johannes W. Betz and Martin
Pristl tell the moving, suspenseful tale of a
great love story and a gripping adventure
against a historical backdrop; Philipp
Kadelbach is the director. The drama of the
Zeppelin LZ 129 Hindenburg, an engineering
masterpiece, burned itself into human memory
as one of the biggest technology disasters of
the 20th century. 35 people lost their lives in the
inferno. Anyone who sees the original footage
of the disaster will find it hard to believe that 62
of the 97 people on board survived. The
destruction of the Hindenburg put an end to
zeppelins being used for air travel, and the
reasons behind the tragedy have not been fully
cleared up to this day.
Special
effects
experts
will
create
unprecedented scenes and images involving
the biggest aircraft ever built and of its
explosion. Under the 40-meter high ceiling of
the Cologne MMC studio, a cross-section of
the zeppelin will be reconstructed, including
the promenade deck, passenger cabins, bridge
and other sections. The film is being produced
with a record budget exceeding EUR 10 million.
The producers have managed to recruit an
unmatched line-up of German stars for this TV
event. The shooting, in Cologne, Nuremberg
and environs, will continue through the middle
of December.
The English version of the script was written by
Philipp LaZebnik. Hindenburg is a Teamworx
production, co-produced with RTL Television
and EOS Entertainment, and sponsored by the
Filmstiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen (North RhineWestphalian Film Foundation) and the
FilmFernsehFonds Bayern (Bavarian Film & TV
Fund). It is scheduled for broadcast in spring
2011.
Hindenburg’s crash in 1937 killed 35 people
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Nature strikes back
Promotional poster
Teasers designed by RTL Creation for the
year’s biggest in-house fiction production have
been on air since Sunday. Other trailers for the
star-studded movie about a volcano eruption in
Germany’s Eifel region will follow next Sunday.
From the beginning of October, the on-air
campaign will be enhanced with additional
measures: mega light boards, Citylight posters,
billboards and advertising pillars. In addition,
the film will be promoted on info screens and in
all the major TV listings and popular
magazines.
The countdown to the event miniseries Vulkan
(Volcano), which airs at 20:15 on
18 October and 19 October on RTL Television,
has begun with a large-scale campaign.
Germany - 1 October 2009
A special highlight of the campaign will be the
distribution, between 8 and 21 October, of a
free folding card that explores the possible
scenario of a volcanic disaster in the Eifel
region and provides a foretaste of the
outstanding special effects featured in this
remarkable film project.
Björn Klimek, Creative Director Promotion and
Advertising at RTL Creation, says: “Like the film
itself, the campaign for Vulkan plays with
people’s primeval fear of a natural disaster
occurring right her in our midst. Our campaign
is designed to maximise viewers’ suspense in
the lead-up to the two-part event movie.”
Matthias Koeberlin plays Michael Gernau
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Vulkan examines what might happen if a vulcano erupted in Germany
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50 years of making
French kids laugh
Petit Nicolas
The delightful Petit Nicolas is coming to M6
with 52 13-minute episodes.
France - 28 September 2009
“Goscinny arrived with a text in which a boy,
Nicolas, talked about his life with his friends, all
of them with strange names: Rufus, Alceste,
Maixent, Agnan, Clotaire (…) and so it began.
René had found the formula,” recounts JeanJacques Sempé. It was 29 March 1959 and, on
that day, the very first story of Petit Nicolas
appeared in the Sud-Ouest Dimanche.
Childhood was put into words by Goscinny,
who invented a “kids’s language”. Sempé took
up his pencil and elegantly sketched out the
gallery of sweet and funny characters… and a
hero was born.
A timeless world that speaks to children today.
Children are able to rediscover this amusing
and mischievous character that is Le Petit
Nicolas each Sunday on M6 Kid, the morning
programme that is completely dedicated to
them. It’s an M6 Studio and Method Animation
production based on the work of René
Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé using
innovative 3D technology. The series has
already been sold internationally to many
countries including Germany, Italy, Latin
American, Poland and Greece.
With more than 11 million copies sold in
more than 30 countries, Le Petit Nicolas
became an international hero.
Le Petit Nicolas is also a film scheduled for
theatrical release in France on 30 September 2009.
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FremantleMedia Finland
signs major deal with
MTV 3
MTV has announced a five year follow-up to the
ever-popular Finnish soap opera Salatut elämät,
which regularly attracts around 20 per cent of
Finland’s population.
Finland - 30 September 2009
The new season will be aired on MTV 3 and
follows on from a hotly discussed cliff-hanger. It
promises to be better than ever before. “It is
now more important than ever to provide our
viewers the chance to relax and enjoy our great
stories and characters. This deal with MTV 3
means a lot to us and allows us to develop the
series even further. It is an honour to keep
producing such a long-running and widely
watched show here in Finland,” states
Executive
Producer
Eerika
Vermilä,
FremantleMedia Finland.
This season started with great success, with
the opening episode attracting 1,045,000
viewers, or 61 per cent of total audience. The
show will be aired in the HD 16:9 widescreen
format from the start of 2010. Salatut elämät
(“Hidden Lives”) is a Finnish soap opera
broadcast on MTV 3, based on the Australian
soap opera Neighbours. It was the first – and
still the only – Finnish daily soap opera. Since
its first episode aired in January 1999, it has
been one of the most popular TV shows in
Finland, regularly attracting around one million
viewers – one fifth of Finland’s population.
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Fun and games
RTL Nederland announces strategic partnership
with Zylom, Skillpod and Spelpunt.
The Netherlands - 29 September 2009
RTL Nederland launched the new Spelsalon.nl
portal, in a first step onto the burgeoning
market of online games.
Arno Otto, Managing Director Digital Media at
RTL Nederland, says: “The demand for online
games is growing by leaps and bounds. Now,
RTL is getting in on the action with
Spelsalon.nl, in collaboration with strong
partners like Zylom, Skillpod and Spelpunt.
Combining these strong brands with RTL’s
entertainment value will turn Spelsalon.nl into
the new star on the online gaming firmament.”
Spelsalon.nl offers a wide variety of games,
including ‘Three in a Row’, puzzles, brain
teasers, Mah-Jong and Action. For many
games, players can choose whether they want
to play against the computer (‘Snel’) or with
other players (‘Samen’). There is also a
premium option for selected games (‘Deluxe’).
The launch of Spelsalon.nl is accompanied by
a major advertising campaign on the RTL
Nederland channels and the RTL.nl homepage.
The commercials show RTL stars John
Williams, Froukje de Both and Eddy Zoey
having a good time on Spelsalon.nl.
out
Check
on.nl
l
a
s
l
e
p
s
Spelsalon.nl
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22,000 job offers posted in one day
RTL Radio France tries to remain close to its listeners and their concerns. For this
purpose, RTL organizes a “Job Creation Day” on the last Monday of every month.
France - 30 September 2009
In difficult economic times, this initiative
launched by RTL Radio is a windfall, a real
opportunity for those seeking employment. The
formula is simple: put the people looking for
work in touch with those who are offering work.
The least that can be said is that it’s working
quite well. Throughout the day, on Monday
28 September, a total of 22,000 offers of
employment were posted – a spectacular figure
that also covered a wide variety of positions:
“There are jobs for every taste and in every
region in France,” commented one journalist
from the editorial department.
In all of the news outlets, listeners found
reports with on-air testimonies from those who
found a position or an employee thanks to this
initiative. The success of this seventh RTL Job
Creation Day is undeniable, beating a new
record, as the site registered 3,000 more
postings than the previous edition. The 22,000
offers of employment will be available for
consultation until mid-October. As a reminder,
earlier RTL Job Creation Days respectively
collected 6,000 job postings in March, 11,000
in April, 14,000 in May, 16,000 in June, 12,300
in July and almost 19,000 in August.
out
Check
RTL.fr
Special dossier on RTL.fr
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“Remembrance is not a
given, it is often very
hard-fought”
La Traque began with in-depth research in the archives
The evening began at 20:20 with the premiere
of La Traque (The Chase), a German-FrenchBelgian coproduction. The film is based on the
true story of Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, a
married couple who have made it their life’s
mission to take Nazi war criminals to court.
If ‘Nazi hunters’ Serge and Beate Klarsfeld
weren’t real people, they could easily be heroes
from a Hollywood thriller. Ever since the early
1970s, when the German-French couple
decided to devote themselves to keeping the
memory of Holocaust victims alive, their life has
often resembled an edge-of-your-seat thriller.
Alone, against all odds and without financial
backing, they tackled politicians in several
countries, severely criticising legal systems and
public opinion. Beate Klarsfeld became widely
known to the German public in 1968, when she
slapped Germany’s then-Chancellor KurtGeorg Kiesinger at the CDU Party Convention,
calling out “Nazi! Nazi”. Kiesinger was a
member of the NSDAP from 1933 to 1945.
An evening-long special on RTL-TVI recalled
the Holocaust, with 14 per cent of viewers aged
18 to 54 tuning in.
Belgium - 25 September 2009
“Should we forget? Should we let bygones be
bygones?” The Klarsfelds answer such
questions loudly and clearly: “No. We owe it to
the victims to bring the truth to light and
demand justice.”
“La Traque is a haunting reminder that it took a
great deal of controversy and discussion for the
Shoah to become part of our collective
consciousness. Remembrance is not a given, it
is often very hard-fought,” said the producers
and co-producers (Elzévir Films, Terz
Filmproduction, AT-Production, WDR, Arte,
RTL-TVI) at the presentation of the film.
At 22:15, the documentary De Auschwitz à
Jerusalem (From Auschwitz to Jerusalem)
marked the second part of the theme evening.
The film describes the years leading up to the
formation of the State of Israel, following the
lives of several families from Europe and the
Middle East.
Through perseverance, the Klarsfelds managed
to drag several wanted Nazi war criminals to
court. The chase for Klaus Barbie, the ‘Butcher
of Lyon’, who continued his murderous
activities in South America after war, serves to
illustrate their mission and its challenges. After
twelve years of research, underground efforts
and fights with the authorities, the Klarsfelds
achieved their objective in 1983: Klaus Barbie
is arrested in Bolivia and faces a court of law in
France before the year is out.
Franka Potente and Yvan Attal as the Klarsfelds
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The book-loving radio station
This autumn RTL Radio France serves up youth novels to make reading more
appetizing to its younger listeners.
France - 25 September 2009
The record prize has been won
EUR 132,600 – the most money that has ever been won in the history of radio.
Bertrand, a contestant from the Sarthe, won the Bonne Touche prize by correctly
answering the questions on general culture posed by Jean-Pierre Foucault and Cyril
Hanouna.
France - 25 September 2009
Record jackpot finally hit on Punkt 12
After a record sum was given away on French radio, now a female viewer has hit the
highest viewer jackpot ever on German TV by winning EUR 126,000 in the Punkt 12News Quiz.
Germany - 28 September 2009
Still number one after ten years
The big, birthday-length Wer wird Millionär? anniversary special on 25 September
earned RTL Television an excellent market share of 39.7 per cent among 14- to 49year-old viewers.
Germany - 28 September 2009
M6 continues to grow
September was M6’s top month in 2009. The channel recorded a total audience
share of 11.3 per cent – 0.6 percentage points more than the year before.
France - 29 September 2009
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“We were treated to flawless diamonds”
W9 in France and RTL-TVI in Belgium aired the very first show of a Belgian-French
adaptation of the UK format The X Factor with 2.3 per cent of the viewers tuning in
to W9 in France and a total audience share of 19.4 per cent for RTL-TVI in Belgium.
France - 29 September 2009
Support for Bob Helps Kindergartens
In the Bob Helps Kindergartens campaign, the popular animated character from
Super RTL’s preschooler programming helps to ensure that his little fans have safe,
stable playground equipment and facilities.
Germany - 25 September 2009
More than 300,000 new listeners
RTL Radio France published its summer audience figures: the station remains
number one in all criteria measured and has moved even farther ahead of its
competition, counting 995,000 more listeners than the number two radio station and
300,000 new listeners.
France - 1 October 2009
Uefa Europa League live on iPhone
Five released an application on the Apple App Store which allows football fans in the
UK to watch the Uefa Europa League matches live in full screen on their iPhone and
iPod touch devices.
United Kingdom - 1 October 2009
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People
Beate Mitschke
Beate Mitschke
Germany - 29 September 2009
Beate Mitschke (28) has been appointed to
head the Marketing department in Super RTL’s
Merchandising unit, including the responsibility
for Artwork Approval.
Mitschke, who holds a degree in business
administration, will help strengthen Super RTL’s
license brands by designing and implementing
promotions. She reports to Stefanie Engels,
Senior Manager Marketing & Retail.
Her Super RTL colleague Jörg Ziemann (30) will
succeed Mitschke as the channel’s Category
Manager Merchandising. Ziemann, a business
graduate, previously worked as Controller in
the
children’s
and
family
channel’s
Merchandising unit.
16
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