RBB Brandenburg (until May 2003ORB-Fernsehen) was the third television channel forBrandenburg, (Germany) from January 1992 to March 2004. Until May 2003, it was organized byOstdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg (ORB), then by its successor,Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB). On 1 March 2004, the two regional television channels of RBB –RBB Brandenburg andRBB Berlin – were integrated into the newrbb Fernsehen.
The programme was launched on 1 January 1992 under the nameFernsehen Brandenburg. In the initial build-up phase, the thenARD cultural television programmeEins Plus was taken over from 3 p.m. to 5.15 p.m. and after 9 pm, and for cost reasons there were initially only a few programmes of its own in the programme. For example, the fact that the news programme was broadcast at 8:45 p.m. and theBrandenburg Journal at 7 p.m. was unusual for viewers inBrandenburg. Especially after the fall ofcommunism, manyEast Germans had oriented themselves to the beginning time of the main news programme ofDeutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF) at 7:30 pm. In general, the cooperation withEins Plus did not lead to any high viewer acceptance.
This was soon followed by a programme reform on 1 May 1992. The main news programmeBrandenburg aktuell received its slot at 7:30 pm, which is still valid today in therbb Fernsehen programme. Later, further programmes with a regional character were added to the programme, such as the popular live programme with local audience participation. TheORB Aquarium was broadcast in the night programme from 1992 to 2004.
One of the formats that has received a lot of attention and that still exists today at the RBB isKowalski trifft Schmidt, a German-Polish programme that was created byGermans andPoles for mutual understanding. The programme, hosted byOla Rosiak andMax Ruppert, wasawarded the German-Polish journalism award in 2001 (hosted at the time byAnna Posnanska andFabian Maier).
From 1 January 1998, the programme was broadcast inanalogue form via theAstra 1B satellite and could thus be received throughout Europe. From May 2003 (merger of SFB and ORB to RBB) until the end of March 2004, the programme was broadcast under the nameRBB Brandenburg.
