The broadcaster is well known for its famous programmesheute, a newscast established in 1963, andWetten, dass..?, an entertainment show that premiered in 1981, with a suspension from 2014 to 2021.[3] Norbert Himmler, ZDF's director general, was elected by the ZDF Television Council in 2021.[3]
The ZDF administrative headquarters in MainzThe ZDF broadcasting centre in MainzHistoric logos
In 1959, the government ofKonrad Adenauer began preparations to form a second nationwide television network with the intention of competing withARD. Adenauer perceived ARD's news coverage to be too critical of his government, and believed that two of the organizations primarily responsible for its news reporting – theDeutsche Presse-Agentur andNordwestdeutscher Rundfunk, which produced the nightlyTagesschau – were too close to the oppositionSocial Democratic Party (SPD) to ever be able to report neutrally on hisChristian Democratic Union government. The new television company called theFreies Fernsehen Gesellschaft (Free Television Society) but derisively calledAdenauer-Fernsehen (Adenauer's television) by critics, was founded on 25 July 1960.
TheDeutsche Bundespost began constructing a second transmitter network onUHF channels, which required new reception equipment. For older receivers, a converter was sold for about 80DM (equivalent to €195 in 2021). As with the earlierARD television network, the location of the transmitters was carefully planned to ensure the entire country would be able to receive the programming.
To test the transmitters and encourage the public to purchase UHF receivers, the federal government allowed the ARD network to create a temporary secondary channel, ARD 2, which was broadcast daily from 8 to 10 p.m. ARD 2 began broadcasting on 1 May 1961 in the transmission area ofHessischer Rundfunk and a month later expanded nationwide.
TheSPD-led states ofHamburg,Bremen,Lower Saxony, andHesse appealed to theFederal Constitutional Court of Germany, which on 28 February 1961 in theFirst Broadcasting Judgment blocked the plan. While building and maintaining telecommunications infrastructure, such as television transmitters, is a responsibility of the federal government under article 87f of theBasic Law, the constitution does not extend these duties to running a television or radio broadcaster. Under Article 30, any power or duty not explicitly assigned to the federal government is reserved for thestates. Therefore, the court ruled only the states had the right to set up a television broadcaster. (Conversely, the same decision supported newlongwave broadcasterDeutschlandfunk, which had been established by the federal government in November 1960; its focus was on external broadcasting and therefore under the federal government's remit to conduct foreign relations.)
After this decision, in March 1961, the states decided to establish a central nonprofit public television network independently of Adenauer's effort. On 6 June 1961, the statepremiers signed at a premiers' conference in Stuttgart the interstate agreement on the "establishment of the public institutionSecond German Television". On 1 December 1961, though not all states had ratified the agreement, it went into force in the states that had done so (Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia,Rhineland-Palatinate). The last state, Bavaria, filed the instrument of ratification on 9 July 1962.
The station began broadcasting fromEschborn nearFrankfurt am Main on 1 April 1963, with a speech by the first director general (Intendant), Karl Holzamer. The channel broadcast its first programme in colour in 1967. In 1974, ZDF moved its base of operations to Mainz-Lerchenberg, after briefly being located inWiesbaden.
In November 1995, ZDF signed an agreement withNBC News to share newsgathering resources.[4]
Since 5 October 1996, ZDF has broadcast 24 hours a day.
ZDF is financed by a license fee of €18.36 per month, which must be paid by all households in Germany except handicapped people and persons on social aid. ZDF shares the income withARD andDeutschlandradio. The fees are not collected directly by ZDF but by theBeitragsservice (commonly known by its former name, GEZ), an organization comprising theARD member broadcasters, ZDF, andDeutschlandradio. ZDF also receives income from sponsorships, programming and advertising sales.
As ZDF is a station, not a network, the station is broadcast throughout Germany, with no regional variations or affiliates, using a number of signal repeaters. ZDF transmitters broadcast a digital signal. Analog signals were gradually phased out, a process which lasted from 2002 to 2008.[5] ZDF does not run any transmitters itself. Throughout the analogue days, all ZDF transmitters were run by theDeutsche Bundespost which was later privatised asDeutsche Telekom's subsidiaryT-Systems Media Broadcast. (This is in contrast to the other public German broadcaster, ARD, which owns its main transmitters.) ZDF was not previously allowed to use ARD's transmitters. ZDF has used both ARD and Telekom transmitters since changes to the law in the 1990s, and since the digital switchover.
The first Europe-widesatellite broadcast viaAstra 1C began in August 1993 during theInternationale Funkausstellung Berlin (IFA – "International Broadcasting Exhibition") inBerlin. In the same decade, these new technologies were used to enabledigital broadcasting of ZDF. Today, ZDF is available free-to-air throughout Europe onAstra 19.2°E.
ZDF operates two digital channels:ZDFneo (aimed at 18- to 45-year-olds) andZDFinfo (documentaries). Both are transmitted in SD and HD. A commercial subsidiary calledZDF Studios GmbH manages programme sales, acquisitions, international coproductions, and a growing number of important activities in new media. ZDF Enterprises owns a Dutch TV production and distribution company, Off the Fence.[6] ZDF also operates various channels in cooperation with other networks:Arte,3sat,KI.KA, andPhoenix.
ZDF's animated station-identitymascots, theMainzelmännchen (a play on the words "Mainz" and "Heinzelmännchen"), created by Wolf Gerlach for the channel's launch in 1963, quickly became popular and are still shown between commercials.[7] In 1976,Otl Aicher, a graphic designer, created ZDF's corporate design.[8] A new design for ZDF was created by Lee Hunt in February 2000.[9]
Administratively, ZDF is headed by a director general (Intendant), who is elected by the ZDF Television Council, the composition of which is in turn determined by "societally relevant groups" named in the ZDF Treaty.
ZDF became a full member of theEuropean Broadcasting Union in 1963. It also has numerous individual cooperation agreements with broadcasters around the world. ZDF is a supporter of theHybrid Broadcast Broadband TV initiative which promotes the establishment of an open European standard for hybrid set-top boxes for the reception of broadcast TV and broadband multimedia applications with a single user interface.
