Paul Gray

Paul Grau (born April 15, 1950 in Uster ) is a Swiss private television pioneer .

Life

Grau grew up in a middle-class environment. His father worked for the electricity works of the canton of Zurich, his mother came from Mels . He also had an older sister and a younger brother. After attending the photography class at the Zurich School of Applied Arts , he became a camera assistant at Condor Films in Zurich in the late 1960s , where he took part in documentary and advertising films.

With a letter of recommendation from his company, Grau set out for Barcelona in 1970 and soon switched from a commercials company to television. In Spain, where he met his first wife Conception, he made recordings with music stars such as Julio Iglesias and Joan Manuel Serrat . Back in Switzerland, he became the most important video clip supplier in his country as a freelance television producer. In 1975 producer Erwin C. Dietrich took him under contract as a camera assistant and still photographer, soon also as a production manager and, thanks to his knowledge of Spanish, he was Dietrich's link to director Jess Franco . His first work as a feature film director The Mad Foxes - Fire on Wheels  (1981) was unsatisfactory for him, as Dietrich claimed all rights for himself. At the end of 1983 he separated from Dietrich by mutual agreement, especially since Grau was able to celebrate great successes as a video clip director. Around this time he made video clips and documentaries with, among others, Adriano Celentano , Krokus , Nina Hagen , the Rolling Stones , Trio , Udo Jürgens and Yello .

In 1980 Paul Grau founded the production company Reflection Film AG. Among other things, he produced for Swiss television and the German private television broadcaster RTL . In 1985, Paul Grau, together with the film distributors Warner Bros. , UIP , 20th Century Fox Film and Buena Vista , sponsored the preview “Trailer Cinema Highlights” (TCH.ch). The show runs today on 17 private television stations and was the basis for the later television station Star TV.

In 1987 he married a second time. In 1988 he founded the production company Eden TV together with two partners. This production company produced programs for the emerging private television sector in Switzerland. In 1992 the company became a partner of the private television broadcaster Zurich 1 . In 2009 the company Eden TV was dissolved.

In 1994, Reflection Film AG , owned by Paul Grau , founded the first commercial Swiss private television broadcaster Star TV with the largest cable operator in Switzerland, Rediffusion AG . The station went on the air on August 31, 1995 and in 1996 was the third TV station worldwide to acquire the Reel Video Player license for television broadcasters. As managing director of the station, he played a key role in its program development. Among other things, the “Street Parade” in Zurich, the fashion event “Swiss Fashion Award” and the political event “Der rostige Paragraph” were broadcast live in Switzerland for the first time. Star TV was also the first broadcaster to broadcast the Locarno Film Festival live.

Paul Grau is the main shareholder and managing director of Star TV. In 2011 the station had over 60 employees; Today there are around a dozen people who work for Star TV, many of whom are employed as interns.

literature

• Benedikt Eppenberger, Daniel Stapfer: Girls, Machos and Monets. The unbelievable story of the Swiss cinema entrepreneur Erwin C. Dietrich , Verlag Scharfe Stiefel, ISBN 3-033-00960-3 , pp. 145–150

Web links

• Paul Gray in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• StarTV.ch

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.kleinreport.ch/news/eden-tv-wir-kommen-wieder-das-ist-keine-frage-42157.html
2. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from June 13, 2011 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.