"stern TV" is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a special broadcast. The magazine veteran looks back on an exciting history.
With a four-hour special on September 2nd (8:15 pm) RTL is celebrating the 30th birthday of "stern TV". The originally planned anniversary broadcast on April 4 was canceled due to the corona pandemic. In the past, the magazine was able to impress with some highlights. A review.
The beginnings and numbers
On April 4, 1990, "stern TV" went on air for the first time. The magazine has been produced for RTL since 2018, previously it was created under a third-party broadcasting license. Since its inception, the format has been broadcast live on RTL every Wednesday at 10:15 p.m. The content of the program is mostly people and events that attracted attention the week before. The topics are dealt with with reports, guests and studio activities. According to RTL, more than 1,400 programs have been produced since the magazine's premiere, and the presenters have welcomed around 10,700 studio guests.
The moderators
From 1990 to 2011 there was no question of who stepped through the opening studio wall with the famous star logo: Günther Jauch (64) became the face of the show. He conducted the magazine for 21 years before relinquishing the moderation in 2011. Steffen Hallaschka (48) took over his great legacy. "Eight or twelve weeks before my first broadcast, there were huge expectations when it became known that there would be a change," Hallaschka said in an interview with RTL. It was only after six months that it became clear: "Now nobody is discussing the missing tie, now I'm slowly getting into people's living rooms and minds." Jauch's farewell program was moderated by "stern TV" reporter Thorsten Schorn (44), and Nazan Eckes (44), Désirée Bethge (68) and Amelie Fried (61) were also briefly seen as substitutes for the presenter.
The contributions
The reports and articles in the magazine cover a wide range of topics – "from children's birthdays to political debates," as Hallaschka says. Reports about the fate of children were particularly close to the audience and waves of willingness to help set off. After the show, people donated millions for the hospital in Nepal, where burned children were given a new face, or for the war-wounded boys and girls from Bosnia. The magazine follows some stories over the years. For more than 25 years, it has been accompanying the Nazi Ritter family from Köthen in Saxony-Anhalt and has repeatedly made shocking contributions. The story of the Beutelspacher quintuplets, who are traditionally guests on the last show before Christmas and were followed from the delivery room to their studies, caused enthusiasm.
The guests
In the first few years, Angela Merkel (66) and Gerhard Schröder (76), two future Chancellors, took the chair next to Jauch. The well-known guests also include athletes such as Steffi Graf (51), Michael Schumacher (51), Henry Maske (56) or Dirk Nowitzki (42) and international show business greats such as Celine Dion (52), Sylvester Stallone (74), David Copperfield (63), Claudia Schiffer (50) or Sting (68).
Even the former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev (89) spontaneously accepted an invitation to the studio in 1992. "He (Gorbatschow) sat in our studio for more than half an hour and spoke about world events. We even had to exceed our airtime at the time because Mr. Gorbachev never stopped talking about his life," says Günther Jauch, still happy today about the meeting with the now 89-year-old former President of the Soviet Union. 1997 decathlete Frank Busemann (45) should be remembered with an appearance: After his World Cup success in Athens, he almost missed his visit to "stern TV", he was stuck in a traffic jam and then his car broke down. Shortly before the night journal he made it into the studio.
Hallaschka also remembered one appearance in particular: "When I have to think of special moments, I always think of Gaby Köster's comeback," reports the moderator. "It was a great responsibility and excitement for me to bring this colleague, who was still visibly suffering from the effects of her stroke, onto the stage."