Phoenix

Phoenix is German news television network owned by ARD and ZDF. The channel broadcasts documentaries, news, special events coverage and discussion programmes

History[]

The initiative to found the channel came from the ARD. Together with the ZDF, a program concept was developed which, in addition to the originally exclusively intended transfers of parliamentary meetings, also included other transmissions and, above all, also supplementary documentations and conversations. The name idea came from Fritz Pleitgen and refers to the Bibliotheca, where Phoenix is called the third brother of the royal dynasties of Europe.

Phoenix was mainly to be received in cable networks of Deutsche Telekom, as well as via the satellite system Astra 19.2 ° East. In the first months, a transponder was used on Astra 1D, which could not be received by all satellite households due to the still untypical frequency band below 10.950 GHz. Only with the change of the program on Astra 1C at the end of the year 1997/1998 it was possible to increase the technical range to about 17 million households.

First, the station in Cologne was resettled at the WDR, until he moved in 2000 to the modernized former capital studio of the ZDF in Bonn.

In August 2006, Phoenix achieved an average monthly market share of 1.0%, which was the highest watch rate in the channel history. With approximately 4.5 million viewers daily, Phoenix was in front of the private information providers n-tv and N24. The market share in 2006 could be increased from 0.6% to 0.7% in 2008, to 0.9% in 2008. The upward trend of acceptance continues.

In 2007, 90 fixed and as many freelancers worked for the broadcaster, which has a budget of around 35 million euros a year from the means of broadcasting.

For the ten-year existence of the station, Phoenix has been available for download on its website since June 11, 2007, on a hundred selected events, speeches and conversations from the broadcasting history. Since 2007, the program has been broadcast in 16: 9 format.

On 26 November 2008, the old blue transmitter design from the years 2000 and 2003 was replaced by a new one. For this, the logo, the new studio at the broadcasting center Bonn, and the website were redesigned. The new logo contains the broadcast name and the current time in black on a light gray background.

In 2010, Phoenix received the highest average market share of one month at 1.3 percent. According to the broadcaster, it was mainly the reporting on Hartz IV in the Bundestag and the Federal Council. Phoenix had even achieved quotas of up to 5.3 percent in November, with live reports on arbitration in the dispute over the Stuttgart 21 rail project, which was also a record.

In 2011, with a market share of 1.1 percent, the channel achieved its best annual value since its inception. The most popular among the spectators were contributions to the political upheavals in the Arab world, the nuclear disaster of Fukushima and the financial crisis.

An HD offshoot of the TV channel has also been broadcast since 30 April 2012. The broadcast is mainly via the high scale of the SD signal, only isolated programs are broadcast in native HD. Starting from 19 August 2015 the native HD transmission is to start.

Programming[]

Phoenix broadcasts a deaf-subtitled version of the Tagesschau, ARD's flagship news broadcast, and ZDF's premier news broadcast Heute-Journal, in German Sign Language.

The channel's flagship news broadcast is Der Tag ("The Day"), which airs from 11:00 pm to midnight. Its length enables extended reports and interviews to be included.

The show Vor Ort ("On Scene") includes live coverage of political events, public lectures by important personalities, press conferences and assemblies of the Bundestag and Bundesrat.

Daily talk shows like Phoenix Runde (Phoenix Roundtable) with Pinar Atalay or Alexander Kähler, Unter den Linden with Michaela Kolster or Michael Hirz, discuss current topics with experts or politicians.

As a benchmark in coverage, a "Meet the Press"-like show, Internationaler Frühschoppen is broadcast Sunday at 12 noon when the ARD's Presseclub is not broadcast.

The series "Historische Debatten" ("Historical Debates") and "Historische Ereignisse" ("Historical Events"), with journalist Helmut Illert, examine important topics relating to the development of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Phoenix is comparable to the American channel C-SPAN or the British BBC Parliament, because they also cover government and national politics.