News Provider N-TV celebrates 25th Anniversary
With a cross-platform news offering and the largest proportion of business news on television, N-TV has grown into one of Germany’s foremost important news and business brands since its launch 25 years ago today. The Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland news provider’s reporting is characterized by a high level of live content and breaking-news expertise. On television alone, more than five million viewers a day follow the day’s news on N-TV.
N-TV turned 25 today. The Cologne news channel celebrated its 25th anniversary on Tuesday with an exclusive birthday party at Bertelsmann Unter den Linden in Berlin. Around 250 guests from politics, business and the media came to congratulate Germany's first news channel. The guests included Hermann Gröhe (Federal Minister of Health), Katrin Göring-Eckardt, Anton Hofreiter (Alliance 90 / The Greens) and Wolfgang Kubicki (FDP). Many past and present N-TV personalities, including political expert Heiner Bremer, news anchor Christoph Teuner, the two "Telebörse" hosts Isabelle Körner and Carola Ferstl, N-TV talk-show hosts Louis Klamroth, Serdar Somuncu and Leo Busch, and former N-TV Managing Directors Karl-Ulrich Kuhlo and Johannes Züll all celebrated in Berlin. FDP party leader Christian Lindner was the guest speaker, and addressed the challenges of a digitalized world and the importance of private news offers.
A true success story of digitalization
In her welcome speech, Anke Schäferkordt, CEO of Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland and member of the Bertelsmann Executive Board, also emphasized the achievement of all the col-leagues who have helped to turn the news broadcaster into a multimedia news provider. “By celebrating 25 years of N-TV today, we are also celebrating a true success story of digitaliza-tion. N-TV has evolved into a multimedia news brand that I feel we, as a group, have every reason to be proud of. A journalistic offer like N-TV can only succeed with colleagues who live for the news, every day. They have experience. They have the joy of innovation. They have a nose for relevant topics. And they know viewers and users’ needs and expectations for a news offer very well. They are N-TV!”
Since November 30 1992, N-TV has offered viewers the latest news from politics, business, sports and society 24/7, 365 days a year. N-TV’s headquarters and broadcasting center are in Cologne; its other locations are the Berlin bureau and the stock exchange studio in Frankfurt am Main. The news channel and Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland also have a global network of correspondents, ensuring that they always quickly at the scene of events.
Skilled journalists in front of and behind the camera ensure the quality of N-TV news. Present-ers and editors tackle topics responsibly and independently, providing context and background analysis. The skill and commitment of the entire team especially comes into play with breaking news. As soon as reports reach the newsdesk, initial pictures are organized, and reporters and correspondents are dispatched to the scene. Editorial staff research and produce film reports. When, after a few minutes, information is presented in a news ticker and the regular program-ming is interrupted, the news machine in the background is already working at full tilt.
Highlights across all genres
Like no other broadcaster in Germany, N-TV stands for competent news from the financial markets and from businesses. The “Telebörse” (Tele-stock exchange) offers up-to-the-minute stock-market news, company news and consumer topics every day – soundly researched, comprehensibly prepared, and competently presented. N-TV is increasingly focusing on for-mats with a multimedia approach – such as “Startup News,” which is dedicated to the startup scene and offers insights into new companies and new, innovative business models – both on TV and on digital platforms.
In addition to news, N-TV also offers informative magazines, controversial talk shows, sports events and high-quality documentaries, especially in the evenings and at weekends. The focus is on individual formats that give N-TV an unmistakable profile. N-TV documentaries, for ex-ample, are characterized by their exclusivity and the fact that in-house and commissioned pro-ductions make up about 20 percent of the lineup – and their share continues to rise. N-TV is also increasingly broadcasting documentaries and reports that deal with current political and social developments and thus provide more in-depth background on the news. Since fall 2016, N-TV has pooled these formats under the “Current Affairs” label. N-TV also keeps adding fresh impetus to the German talk show environment with innovative and unabashedly provocative talk shows like “Klamroths Konter” and “So! Muncu!”
Successful across all platforms
For several years now, N-TV has systematically pursued a successful multiplatform strategy. As a modern news company, N-TV offers specifically prepared content on all platforms and across all media – whether TV, online, smartphone, in-car entertainment, Amazon Echo, whether as videos, streams, or texts. At the same time, N-TV stands for a high level of journal-istic quality and credibility. This does not go unrecognized among users: with as many as 145.9 million monthly visits and up to 12.76 million unique users aged 10 and older, N-TV of-ferings regularly top the digital rankings.
“A lot has changed since N-TV launched in November 1992,” says Hans Demmel, Managing Director of N-TV. “Only one thing has remained the same from the beginning: News is still our passion. That's why it's important to us that we provide our viewers and users with the best information, on all platforms, around the clock, and are a reliable partner for them, especially in news-intensive times like these.” Demmel says his team aspires to provide reliable and compe-tent orientation. “Our colleagues, whether in the editorial offices or in the tech department, whether for TV or for our digital offers, work for this with great passion every day. I’m always impressed by how far the entire team will go to fulfill this commitment, especially with breaking news, often to the point of exhaustion. So I'd like to say a special thank you to everyone who has, over the past 25 years, helped to make N-TV what it is – one of the most successful mul-tiplatform news providers in Germany.”
“What counts are responsible sources”
“We aim to provide transparent and responsible coverage, and to make the increasingly com-plex world as understandable as possible,” adds Sonja Schwetje, Editor-in-Chief at N-TV. “It’s important to us that we provide timely and comprehensive information, even when a situation is still relatively unclear. Especially at such times, what counts are responsible sources like N-TV, ones that will put events in context, and also let people know if information has not yet been fully verified.”
“N-TV carries a clear brand promise in the name, one that we fulfill every day with Telebörse among others: We report the day’s most important events quickly and comprehensibly,” ex-plains Ulrich Reitz, Head of Business at N-TV. “We also present analyses, backgrounders and expert opinions. In short, 'news you can use' is our professional passion.”
