Bet he can do it!

The new head of entertainment at ZDF has spent a lot of time structuring since he took up his post in September 2012. Entertainment was set up on different legs. There were almost two entertainment departments. "In my first six months, I consolidated in the staff structure and then divided the department by genre a bit more clearly." Now there are 27 permanent editorial staff, plus Fuchs also works with freelancers. In Mainz, there are only a few in-house productions, "much fewer than at SRF, anyway." Specifically, only "Wetten, dass ...?", "Der Fernsehgarten" and a few music shows.

WW: Were you surprised that an external personality was chosen for this politically important post?
Oliver Fuchs: Yes, that was really something new. For a long time, ZDF had not appointed anyone from the outside to such a management position. Then there was someone who had really worked in the private sector, who therefore had no station history.

The outgoing head of entertainment Manfred Teuber is 62, the new program director Norbert Himmler, who was elected a year ago, is 41, and you are now 44. The intention of rejuvenation is not to be overlooked. But why does ZDF absolutely have to rejuvenate when statistically people are getting older and older?
We had an average age of our audience of 62 and this year we're already at 60, so we've already done two years. But it's not about excluding the older ones. That's a big misunderstanding! The demographic trends are well known. Our aim is not to lose the young completely. At RTL, the target group of "young people" was once defined as 14 to 49. In the meantime, that has also been changed to 14 to 59, because social developments have also been noticed at the young RTL. At ZDF, we are not addicted to youth mania. We want to reach the "actively family-oriented" and we want to reflect society. There will be programs that tend to be older - but there are also programs that are younger. The young are also contributors and have a right to offerings from us.

In a survey of viewers, ZDF's entertainment programming was given the attributes "Monotony"and "Stagnation" described. Did you feel the same way?
In part, yes. The BBC has always set trends with formats such as "Strictly Come Dancing", which, funnily enough, is shown here on RTL as "Let's dance". In other areas too, for example with their comedy on BBC 3. Without wanting to say anything bad, certain trends were missed here. I believe that a major national broadcaster like ZDF must always be a pioneer and first mover. But we also have to be careful not to make too many "me too" products. But we have recharged the cabaret and comedy genre in recent years and are very active in building on this.

Does this explain why an external person, specifically the CEO of Eyeworks, was brought to ZDF? Are such trendsetters mainly found outside the public structures?
Eyeworks, like many production companies, was fortunately entrepreneur-led. The shareholders were concrete people and not some fund or a large investor. In this respect, many things were always a bit easier, also because we ourselves were responsible for the management. But nevertheless: Eyeworks was absolutely economically positioned. The goal was to have success in order to earn money with it. And you can only be successful if you are innovative from time to time. The broadcasters were our customers at that time, and we had to prove to them that we were one of the fresher producers.

As head of Eyeworks, you were strategically, commercially and creatively involved. What will change at ZDF?
I've been with Eyeworks since the company was born. In 2000, we were an RTL subsidiary. I joined the company with a former managing director, Kai Sturm, who is now editor-in-chief at Vox. In 2002, Eyeworks, which is now active in around 17 countries, joined us, which was to lead to the internationalization of this small company in Cologne. In 2004, I took over as managing director, although everyone in Germany said: You're insane, such a small TV company won't have a chance in an already extremely competitive market. But that's exactly what appealed to me - to prove that it can be done. Likewise, at ZDF, I'm now being told that there are tasks to be done that weren't done in the past for nothing. But that's exactly what excites me here, too. To say again: No, you can rethink and question one thing or another.
 
At Eyeworks, interestingly enough, trash and highbrow films were produced at the same time. You once said about this: "Television is only a mirror of society". Does it stay with this message?
Of course, we have different tasks at a public broadcaster than at a private company. You can't do certain things at a public broadcaster, nor should you. We also have a role model function. But nonetheless, we also want to not only represent the entire breadth of society, but also invite people to watch with us.

What drew you to television when you first started?
I actually wanted to be a photographer. I was influenced by the Magnum photographers. They fascinated me because they not only made aesthetically beautiful art, but also always staged stories with their pictures. As a basis for this, I wanted to start training as a technical scientific photographer at ETH Zurich, but unfortunately my professor died. So the only alternative I had was to move to Cologne. There I studied "photo engineering" for six semesters, but then dropped out. That was just the time when RTL moved from Luxembourg to Cologne. In setting up this new television station, I saw the best opportunity to direct stories. Nevertheless, I went into production first.

Learning by Doing?
Yes, absolutely. The RTL station was laughed at, but Sat.1 had also relaunched here in the Mainz area before that. That was the opportunity at the time. Apart from the film school in Munich, there were almost no training opportunities in the field of television. Now every vocational school has a department where you can do something with media. I myself soon taught in the following development and still do a bit of lecturing at the RTL School of Journalism as well as at the Grimme Academy. "Learning by doing" was a good basis back then. Today, I wouldn't advise anyone to drop out of college to start in the media. I would rather say: Choose a course of study that leads to that goal, preferably part-time. But the competition among people who want to get in is very high.

Great competition in television and a Swiss won it. Do you sometimes experience a similar rejection in Mainz as Germans do in Switzerland?
I feel very much at home in Germany. I observe the development of this negative attitude towards Germans in Switzerland with great skepticism. I experience it myself when I travel to the skiing vacations with my German license plate. I feel sorry for this country, which forms such a highly developed society in terms of grassroots democracy, and is now dealing with this very strange issue. I think Germany is a great country at the moment, highly liberal, a woman as chancellor, a homosexual foreign minister. There is no country in the world that combines what Germany can do at the moment: a strong economic performance with a highly liberal political attitude, with a very colorful social commitment and such a high level of social security. Combining these four points in one country is quite difficult, and that's why I think Germany is great at the moment.

ZDF was stabilized in the era of Helmut Kohl as a "Entertainment steamer"and political counterweight to ARD. How big is the share of entertainment compared to information today?
ZDF's share of information is around 45 percent, which no one else can match. But there is always the question of the definition of entertainment. Television is first and foremost an entertainment medium. Even many information programs also entertain, think of "Terra X," for example. The successful fictional programs play a big role. Fiction shapes our access primetime, with the "Soko" series, among others. In primetime, too, big movies are programmed on many evenings, or romantic comedies.

Where do you see a stylistic difference to Swiss television?
Both have the advantage that they are national stations. In terms of funding, Swiss television would be more comparable to a 3rd channel in Germany. What always impresses me is the huge reach here. Even if you work for WDR, you can reach up to about 22 million people in the country. That can't be compared to Switzerland. The Swiss market has the advantage that you can create a national identity through language. We don't have that in a territorial state like Germany. Making television in Germany is so complicated because not only is the competition huge, you also have to overcome a lot of cultural and linguistic differences across regional borders. This capping of the nation, as Switzerland is able to do, is not possible here at all. Apart from that, I have the highest respect for Swiss television, but I'm also a bit surprised from time to time at how much is possible in the area of advertising and sponsoring, despite this monopoly position. There is not really a private market allowed. SRG is in a very privileged position.

In addition to the ban on advertising in the evening, ZDF has also been banned from showing sponsorship after 8 p.m. for a few months now. Does your department now have to earn more money in the afternoon as a replacement?
Editorial offices do not earn money. At most, they provide the best possible environment for advertising. But there's not much of that here. A maximum of 20 minutes per working day, and not after 8 p.m. The sponsorship ban in the evening affects ZDF, and I also have to accept budget cuts this year.

About the program: What do you want to change?
We are working intensively. We want to create events. We see that the show in particular can create a live experience that is otherwise hard to find on television. "Wetten dass...?" is of course one such example. Our anniversary show "50 Years of ZDF or a celebrity version of "Rette die Million" were also events and created an immediacy that can't be achieved in fiction. My goal is to do more of this eventization of shows: to make Saturday evenings a little bigger again with a certain theme or hook.

Are you also responsible for the digital stations Neo and Kultur?
No. "ZDF-Kultur" will probably not exist in its current form for much longer. There is a very close exchange with "ZDFneo". We do a lot of programs together. We work together on show development for late night and conceive new ideas for Sunday afternoons together. We also work together on various factuals and docu-soaps. "Neo" sometimes gets things for its first broadcast that we then have later in the main program, and vice versa.

To what extent can you still be creative yourself as a boss?
The last half year I spent a lot of time structuring. Entertainment was set up on different legs. There were almost two entertainment departments. In my first six months, I consolidated in the staff structure and then divided the department by genre a bit more clearly.

How big is your department?
There are 27 permanent editorial staff, but we also work with freelancers and have only a few in-house productions in Mainz - far fewer than at SRF, anyway. The only shows we produce entirely ourselves are "Wetten, dass...?", "Der Fernsehgarten" and a few music shows.

In the media for the afternoon was announced a "Innovation track from May"promised?
ZDF used to be at the forefront, if you think of the courtroom format "Streit um drei. Then the private broadcasters cribbed it and tightened it up, and we fell behind, and certainly treated some trends "stepmotherly. "Innovation track" is a lofty word in the overall industry. I'd rather put it this way: We're trying out a few things, so-called "factual" channels, for example documentary reality shows, which we'll soon be showing on Sunday afternoons.

What specifically will these new broadcasts bring?
We have first taken a look at the program at the edges. Not only because it has a more flexible program structure there. You can also try out more things here. We've relaunched Sunday afternoons. With Jörg Pilawa, we lost a presenter to ARD. We are currently holding talks with several potential successors. We have Jörg Thadeusz and Inka Bause with us, and at the turn of the year we'll be starting with Helene Fischer. By then, we'll have tested around 15 new formats. They're all one-offs, so I don't think it's that noticeable. I stand by the fact that we also do "try and error." I recently asked the director: How many flops can you take? He answered: "Out of three, it can be two. But the other one has to be right."

Under sharp observation is "Bet that...?". How far can your signature already be seen here?
I started with the relaunch. Certain parameters were set. But we did a lot of detailed work on the content, set up a new set and hired a new director. I'm also very happy with the role of the assistant, where we brought in comedy with Cindy aus Mahrzahn. In the first season, we were able to average nine million. That's a very good figure for an entertainment show and makes us a national event.

Is Swiss participation an issue for you as a Swiss?
We are meeting SRF Director Rudolf Matter these days together with SRF Head of Entertainment Christoph Gebel for a co-production conference. There we'll talk about programs that are jointly produced within the German-speaking public broadcasters. I would be delighted if Switzerland were to take part in "Wetten, dass...?" again.

What else could be possible?
You have to think again about competitive contests. What used to be "game without limits." I'm not saying that's the program. But there are new possibilities in this area, where you can once again create an event together - emphasis on event again - where sporting activities are mixed with entertainment. In the music sector, there is very close coordination, at least with ORF. We have just signed the contracts for an extension of the "Carmen Nebel Show" and there are exciting talks for the coming year.

As head of entertainment, you have a position of power. Can you make stars?
Of course television makes stars. But very often it is now the case that stars, especially in the musical and comedy fields, see television as a marketing platform for their own programs and goals. Of course, shows can still generate stars. I think it's like television formats: One in ten will do it. But that's not up to the entertainment director! Development work always has more to do with strategy. I don't believe in the individual who is so brilliant that he invents something great. Television format development is always a team effort and never a singular process that can ignore the other aspects like the market, the availability of artists, trends and the competitive situation.

What role does the Internet play in your department?
New media are a big topic for us. We have our own online unit with a head of development. As in Switzerland, we are subject to strong restrictions as a public TV station. But we're very active with campaigns on Twitter and Facebook, and with young programs like the "Heute Show," we're seeing that viewers on the Internet already account for a share of up to 2 percent. It's enormous what's going on in parallel now.

What do you enjoy about your new job?
So far, it's still super exciting. I came from a small company with 200 employees and now I'm in a company with several thousand. That has a completely different effect. Being on the broadcast side also means for me: I get to know more people than ever before. All the creatives, producers, artists want to talk to me. The insight into the industry is enormous, so I'm learning every day, and it's fun for me after more than 20 years in the business to get to know completely new aspects.

Interview: Andreas Panzeri