Welt

Welt is German news television network owned by WeltN24. The channel broadcasts news (nationwide and worldwide news, sports, business), weather and lifestyle programmings.

History[]

In the late 1990s, in the heat of the dot-com bubble ProSieben Media, then consisting of two TV channels (ProSieben and Kabel 1) whose programming largely consisted of US movies, sitcoms and series, tried to take over German television news channel N-TV, then owned by Handelsblatt and CNN. After the attempt failed, ProSieben Media purchased German newswire ddp (now dapd) and announced the launch of its own news channel soon afterwards, by consolidating ProSieben's news department. The channel was launched on 24 January 2000 at noon, from ProSieben Media's headquarters in Unterföhring near Munich. In collaboration with Bloomberg Television, N24 provided live coverage of financial markets around the world. Apart from running its own network, Welt also provided ProSieben and Kabel 1 with newscasts.

In the same year, ProSieben Media purchased rival channel Sat.1, located in Berlin, which had a news department of its own and ran a number of factual programmes. ProSieben Media renamed itself ProSiebenSat.1 Media afterwards. After the merger, N24 moved from Unterföhring to Sat.1's headquarters in Berlin in July 2001, and the news departments of Sat.1 and N24 were combined.

In 2002, ProSiebenSat.1 Media's majority owner, Kirch Media, filed for bankruptcy. While ProSiebenSat.1 Media itself was not broke, an extended search for a buyer, during which ProSiebenSat.1 Media was effectively owned by Kirch Media's banks, created uncertainty at the company. This combined with the market crisis after the end of the dotcom bubble and 9/11, caused ProSiebenSat.1 Media to cut costs. It replaced a number of newscasts on N24, especially in the afternoons, the evenings and on the weekends, with cheaper documentaries. Business and stock market coverage was also cut dramatically, and remaining business reports were bought from CNBC Europe instead of producing them in-house. The reports featured CNBC's proprietary graphics. In 2007, N24 strengthened its business coverage, introducing daily programmes such as Börse am Mittag and Börse am Abend. The channel moved its headquarters in October 2008.

In 2008, ProSiebenSat.1 Media sold its property in Berlin and announced that Sat.1 would move to Unterföhring, where ProSieben and Kabel Eins were already based. N24 would relocate within Berlin. In 2010, ProSiebenSat.1 Media sold N24 to a group of private investors, led by former Der Spiegel editor Stefan Aust. N24 was contracted by ProSiebenSat.1 Media to continue providing Sat.1, ProSieben and Kabel Eins with newscasts at least until 2016. In 2013, N24 was acquired by Axel Springer and combined with Die Welt to form WeltN24.

On 17 September 2016, a sister channel called N24 Doku launched free to air, which is a one-hour delayed timeshift channel of Welt in the afternoon and replaces some news broadcasts by documentaries in the morning.

On 18th January 2018, N24 is renamed Welt as part of Die Welt's rebranding effort in 2015.