Frontal (TV broadcast)

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Television broadcast
Original title FRONTAL
Country of production Germany
original language German
Year (s) 1993-2000
Episodes 290
genre Politmagazin
Moderation Bodo H. Hauser and Ulrich Kienzle
First broadcast March 30, 1993 on ZDF

Frontal was a German political magazine that was broadcast 290 times on ZDF from March 30, 1993 to December 12, 2000 on Tuesdays for three quarters of an hour from 9 p.m. Frontal took over the broadcasting slot for the political program Kennzeichen D , which was postponed to Wednesday. The show was repeated from 1994 to 1998 twice a week on NBC Super Channel with English subtitles . The show was in the tradition of its predecessor, Studio 1 .

The concept

What made Frontal unique among the political magazines in Germany was the two-faction concept: While the editorial offices of most other political magazines are viewed as closely related to a certain party, the Frontal team consisted of supporters of the two major popular parties, the CDU team around Bodo H. Hauser and the SPD team around Ulrich Kienzle . The aim of this personnel policy was the most balanced possible reporting.

This concept of balanced reporting was also evident in the journalistic content, e.g. B. when this topic was widely discussed in the German media landscape due to a current case of child abuse , Frontal reported on the abuse with the abuse , unjustified accusations against proven innocent employees of kindergartens.

In 1996 both presenters received the Bambi Media and TV Prize .

The moderators

Frontal was moderated by the editorial managers Bodo H. Hauser and Ulrich Kienzle. The entertainment value of this political magazine was mainly due to the fact that the two journalists carried out their personal and party-political rivalry in the show in a humorous and sarcastic manner. The most apt remarks have even been published several times as books and phonograms.

Ulrich Kienzle was represented several times by Maybrit Illner and Maria von Welser .

The theme music

The theme tune of the show was a shortened and newly recorded version of an instrumental part from Mike Batt's Ride to Agadir (between about 1:45 and 2:05 minutes).

The amplitude of the audio signal was displayed as a light bar in the picture, reminiscent of the previous program ZDF-Magazin , which showed a corresponding oscilloscope image .

The rubrics

In addition to the films, the program was characterized primarily by the following categories.

The gloss

In second position after the opening moderation was usually a contribution between two and three minutes long, which satirically commented on current political developments. In addition to daily updated images, film material was often used showing slip of the tongue or other faux pas by politicians.

The shredder

This section was opened by Kienzle with the question: “ What's new, Hauser? ". As a result, both of them drew out mutually absurd or completely insignificant agency reports, read them in a mock self-important voice and then put them in a shredder with a snappy comment.

The end

The end of each program was introduced by Hauser with the slogan: “Any questions, Kienzle?” Then Kienzle usually opened a funny exchange of blows with the words “Yes, Hauser!” And a daily question, almost every time with the sentence “Well then , good evening! ”von Hauser ended.

The end

With the retirement Ulrich Kienzle got out, and frontal was Frontal21 replaced, which could not build houses / Kienzle to the high popularity of the team.

Audience ratings

In 1996 Frontal reached around 4 million viewers, corresponding to a market share of around 18 percent. In 1999 the audience was 3.6 million.

Web links