Happy Birthday! Vox celebrates its 25th anniversary
25 years ago today, on January 25, 1993, a new second-generation German TV station went on the air in the German media metropolis of Cologne at precisely 5 pm: Vox. Its classy launch included a speech by Johannes Rau, North Rhine-Westphalia’s then Minister Presi-dent who later became Germany’s Federal President. After initially starting as “intellectual event television,” just a year later Vox had to start over, but then established itself in the sec-ond league of German television – and today can look back on an impressive track record. Last year, for instance, Vox attracted an average 6.8 percent share of its target audience of 14- to 59-year-olds.
The Stars congratulate
The “well-being channel” with a red ball as its logo and currently 76 employees has evolved and changed over the years, of course. In the early days, its lineup was dominated by maga-zine shows such as “Wolkenlos,” “Voxtours” and “Hundkatzemaus,” feature films and U.S. series such as “Ally McBeal” and later “CSI – Crime Scene Investigation.” Over time, Vox came to focus more and more on in-house productions – and very successfully so. Today, its audiences love formats such as the music series “Sing meinen Song – Das Tauschkonzert” (since April 2014), the founders’ show “Die Höhle der Löwen” (Shark Tank), the drama series “Red Band Society” (since November 2015), and the cooking show “Kitchen Impossible” (since February 2016). The channel addresses topics that interest and move people using a creative mix of genres. Thanks to excellent ratings and numerous awards, Vox is getting more and more adept at playing in the league of major broadcasters.
Clear positioning
When asked what distinguishes his station from others, Vox CEO Bernd Reichart responds: “Its program lineup – and its clear positioning, its unmistakable identity. Everyone at Vox, at Mediengruppe, and all our external partners know exactly what the channel is and wants to be. And they all really enjoy working for Vox. Kai Sturm adds: “What I’ve always especially ap-preciated about Vox and still appreciate today is that I can do entertainment with a relevant value-add here. In other words: every entertaining element always contains an insight for the viewer as well. At least that’s what we aim for. And this aspiration motivates every one of us in the team to find and implement formats that meet these criteria. Which they keep succeed-ing at brilliantly. That's what makes them and the channel special.” Read on for the short in-terviews with Vox CEO Bernd Reichert, Vox Editor-in-Chief and Head of Entertainment Kai Sturm, and Vox Program Director Ladya van Eeden.
Evergreens
After 25 years of broadcasting, the Vox program archive today contains a total of 4.2 million program minutes. The channel’s longest-running format is the car magazine known today as “Auto Mobil,” which launched in October 1995 as “Auto Motor Sport TV.” Over the past 22 years, a total of 1,110 episodes were broadcast. In second place is “Hundkatzemaus,” a popular pet magazine with presenter Diana Eichhorn. Launched in November 2001, 811 epi-sodes have been aired to date. Incidentally, Diana Eichhorn is the longest-serving Vox pre-senter. Third place in the Vox long-runner charts goes to “Das perfekte Dinner,” a daily cook-ing documentary that just celebrated its 3,000th episode on Jan19 – and earned Vox its first-ever German Television Award in 2007.
