Helmut Thoma (Manager)

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Helmut Thoma (Vienna 2009)

Helmut Thoma (born May 3, 1939 in Vienna ) is an Austrian media manager .

Career

Thoma first did an apprenticeship in a dairy until he made up his Matura at evening school in 1958 . Then he studied for law at Vienna University, where he in 1962 to Dr. jur. PhD. Until 1966 he worked in various law firms and did internships in court. In 1966 he started as a legal employee at ORF , where he headed the legal department from 1968 to 1973 . He then moved to Radio Luxemburg (IPA) as authorized signatory of the general agency, before becoming sole managing director in 1975.

Helmut Thoma became program director of Radio Luxemburg in 1982 and on January 2, 1984 took over the management of private television for RTLplus in Luxemburg. From 1986 he was spokesman for the management of RTLplus Deutschland Fernsehen GmbH & Co. KG , which he initially shared with Erich Staake . After Erich Staake returned to Bertelsmann in March 1991 , Helmut Thoma was sole managing director. In November 1998 he handed over this post to his compatriot Gerhard Zeiler .

With a feel for the media landscape and courageous program decisions, Helmut Thoma made RTL the most successful and profitable television broadcaster in Europe. Regardless of the many criticisms with regard to the choice of program formats and the focus on audience ratings, Helmut Thoma was voted "Media Man of the Year 1989", made an honorary professor by the Austrian Federal President (1995) and has received numerous awards, in particular the " Golden Camera " ("Prize for Movement in German Television"; 1989) and the " Bambi " (1990), the "Golden Decoration of Honor of the City of Vienna" (1991) and the " German Media Prize " (1992), the " International Emmy Award " ( 1994) and the " Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia " (1995).

After working for RTL, Thoma was the media officer of the then Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia , Wolfgang Clement, from 1998 to 2002 .

As a result, Thoma wrote columns for Wirtschaftswoche . Furthermore, he is honorary senator of the Business and Information Technology School ( BiTS ) in Iserlohn, member of the supervisory board of freenet AG and, since 2007, member of the board of directors of the divisional TV broadcaster German investor television (DAF), which belongs to the controversial "stock exchange guru" Bernd Förtsch . In the summer of 2007 he founded the media consultancy TT-Studios.

Private

Thoma married three times. He has a son from his first marriage. In his second marriage he was married to an ENT specialist. His third marriage in 1994 was the former Luxembourg banker and broker Danièle Milbert, with whom he had been in a relationship since she worked as his assistant at RTL in 1984. In 1998 there was a separation, in 2004 the relationship. In between, Danièle Thoma wrote a book about their marriage. Thoma and his media consultancy reside in the Schallmauer castle in Hürth - Berrenrath .

Concise formulations

Public statements by Helmut Thoma often find some echo because of their simple and concise exaggeration. “If you follow the trend, you can only see your bottom,” is one of his flippant sayings , as the newspaper source calls it. His motto in life is: "I don't want to be a normal ant in this huge anthill of humanity, I want at least to be one with a bow."

His label " Kukident -Sender " was picked up in other publications with a view to the high average age of the RTL competitor ZDF. This was also reflected in the ZDF satire " Lerchenberg ".

criticism

At the beginning of November 2010, he made the headlines with a statement: In an interview with Welt am Sonntag he confessed to having worked as a grave robber in the past . The artefacts stolen from the ancient site of Palmyra in Syria are still in his private possession, and German and Austrian archaeologists reacted indignantly.

Prizes and awards

Individual evidence

  1. Prof. Dr. Helmut Thoma becomes honorary senator of BiTS
  2. Chairman of the Supervisory Board
  3. zeit.de of June 11, 2009
  4. Danièle Thoma  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.hoffmann-und-campe.de  
  5. rp-online.de of January 20, 2004
  6. Company entry at moneyhouse.de (accessed Nov. 2015)
  7. a b Thoma won't let it go derwesten.de (WAZ), August 10, 2011.
  8. ZDF only inspires pensioners. Retrieved July 16, 2013 . WAMS , by Kai-hirnrich Renner (sic!)
  9. ^ Company: ZDF at wiwo.de
  10. epd: 50 years of ZDF ( Memento of the original from January 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.epd.de
  11. Welt am Sonntag, November 6, 2010
  12. Epoc
  13. List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)

Web links