1 October 2009 week 40 Share your senses Christoph Mainusch on Alpha TV’s new line-up Germany The Netherlands RTL Television and Teamworx RTL Nederland launches to film the Hindenburg disaster Spelsalon.nl Finland France FremantleMedia strikes RTL Radio France gathers major deal with MTV 3 22,000 jobs offers in one day COVER: Alpha stars celebrating at the programme presentation on 24 September. 2 week 40 the RTL Group intranet “We are proud… and prepared” Alpha TV presented its new programming for the upcoming season. Backstage asked Christoph Mainusch, the new CEO of Alpha, what viewers can expect. Christoph Mainusch Greece - 1 October 2009 Many of the famous faces at Alpha attended the Apart from its perennially popular shows, Alpha special event on 24 September at the Egli cinema has introduced some new ones, like Pano stin at the Zappeion. Presenter Katerina Karavatou, ora (On Time) and Deste tous (Tie Them) and will who usually presents the gossip show introduce some more in the future, such as the Kous-Kous, hosted the programme presentation. Chart Show and Ten, which will run alternately Many of the channel’s major and minor stars lent every Sunday and originated from the famous her their support, taking the stage to add their German TV shows Die ultimative Chart Show and own amusing touches to the evening. Die Zehn which are broadcast on RTL Television. Commercial Director Costas Charitsis and Alpha’s new CEO, Christoph Mainusch, touched Now, as the new season begins, Backstage took briefly on the goals the station has set for the the opportunity to ask Christoph Mainusch about 2009/10 season. Mainusch addressed the the future development of Alpha TV. audience in fluent Greek and stressed that the main objective is to cement Alpha’s position How does the Greek market differ from the among the three top TV channels, a standing Croatian market? which was achieved over the second half of last Greece and Croatia are both small TV territories, year thanks to the radical and highly effective but the Greek TV market is more competitive due changes that were made in the access prime to a larger number of channels. time slot (18:00 to 21:00), which meant moving the news from 20:00 to 19:00 and introducing the How would you rate the economic situation in brand-new Kati Psinetai (Come Dine With Me). Greece at the moment? Like in other European countries it’s a very Alpha TV’s audience share in the commercial difficult situation. But I believe the situation has target group increased each month from January bottomed out and we will see a slight recovery in 2009 (12.4 per cent) to June 2009 (15.8 per cent), 2010. finishing the first half of the year with an average audience share of 14.0 per cent (2008: 12.7 per What are Alpha’s strengths? Where is there cent). room for improvement? Alpha is a channel dominated by local light The channel wishes to maintain this course of entertainment programmes. We have three very action, by keeping key shows such as: Kafes me successful programme brands, Al Tsantiri News, thn Eleni (Coffee With Eleni), Kous-Kous, Fatus Pame Paketo and Kafes me thn Eleni. With the Olus, Mes stin kali hara (In A Good Mood) and introduction of international formats like Come Pame Paketo (You’ve Got A Package). Mainusch Dine With Me and The Farmer Wants A Wife we also made special mention of Lakis Lazopoulos, have sharpened our profile as a family-oriented thanking him for deciding to stay at Alpha TV for full-programme broadcaster. Rescheduling the two more years. Lakis Lazopoulos host the main news to 19:00 was the first step in famous Al Tsantiri News which regularly attract a improving our scheduling and programme flow. total audience share of 50 per cent. We are well on our good way and the channel increased its prime time ratings between January and June this year by 67 per cent. 3 week 40 the RTL Group intranet Clément Schwebig, COO of Alpha TV, Lakis Lazopoulos, presenter of Al Tsantiri News, and Alpha CEO Christoph Mainusch (from left to right) How are you planning to strategically position Samoilis and Agrotis monos psahni (The Farmer Alpha in the upcoming season? Wants A Wife) with Sissy Christidou, which will Keep the best and introduce the successes of run every Wednesday, as well as The Hotel tomorrow. We will sharpen our image as an Inspector and Beat Your Host as our event show entertainment programme built on our two pillars: from next spring. strong daytime shows and serious and reliable news but presented in a different way, to focus What is the competitive landscape like? Have on viewer interests. your competitors already reacted to Alpha’s repositioning? Early this year, several formats that are doing They are still in shock but I’m afraid they will well in Germany were established with similar recover soon. Some will try to copy our success on the Greek market. Will they be successes. We are proud… and prepared. followed by others? Formats like Come Dine With Me and Kitchen What’s your first impression of your new Nightmares have changed the market place of work? completely. Actually we surprised our It’s a great company with very nice and competition with these enormous successes. So motivated people and has a good team spirit – all we will continue to introduce shows like Gia the prerequisites for success. It won’t be easy logariasmo sas (Get Out Of Debt) with Nikos but we will make it. Alpha TV’s next season runs under the heading “Share Your Senses” 4 week 40 the RTL Group intranet Four Emmy Awards for American Idol American Idol nabbed four Emmy Awards at this year’s ceremony – more than ever before. Also in September, Mogadischu was named best German TV movie, while Radio 538 was pronounced the best Dutch radio station. Luxembourg - 30 September 2009 For his work on American Idol, Bruce Gowers won for ‘Best Directing’ at the 61st Prime Time Emmy Awards on 21 September at Los Angeles’s Nokia Theatre. He prevailed over such productions as Late Show With David Letterman, Real Time With Bill Maher, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and Saturday Night Live hosted by Justin Timberlake. Earlier, American Idol had won three awards in the categories ‘Outstanding Lighting Direction’, ‘Outstanding Art Direction For Variety, Music or Non-fiction Programming’ and ‘Outstanding Technical Direction’ at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. This is the highest number of Emmy Awards the show has received in a single year. The team of Mogadischu receiving the German TV Award The Teamworx production about the October RTL Television’s Der Lehrer (The Teacher) 1977 hijacking of Lufthansa’s ‘Landshut’ prevailed against the series Franzi and Lasko – aircraft won the top German TV Award another RTL programme – in the “Best Series” (Deutscher Fernsehpreis). The nine judges category. Der Lehrer premiered at the bestowed the year’s most important prize on beginning of August. Finally, RTL Television Mogadischu. Apart from Teamworx CEO and won the award for “Best Comedy” with TV- Executive Producer Nico Helden whose team prevailed over Oliver Hofmann and Mogadischu Welke’s Heute Show and Hape producers Gabriela Sperl and Kerkeling’s fictional character Jürgen Schuster, the award ‘Horst Schlämmer’. honors the movie’s director Roland Suso Richter, Meanwhile, Radio 538 was the Maurice Philip Remy big winner at this year’s Marconi (script), Holly Fink (camera) – Awards. Having entered the and of course its stars Thomas running with five nominations, the Kretschmann, Nadja Uhl, Jürgen Dutch radio station went home with Tarrach and Christian Berkel. three awards: for ‘Best Radiozender’, the ‘Best Programma’ in the Top 40, and for Moderator Edwin Evers as ‘Best Presentator’. The Marconi Awards are the Netherlands’ only radio awards and are presented annually in a number of categories. In 1998, Edwin Evers had received his first Marconi Award for Evers Staat Op. 5 week 40 the RTL Group intranet Nina Haun, Casting Director at UFA, receives the EUR 10,000 German Casting Award 2009 for her casting of five recent big-screen and TV films. The prize will be presented on 3 October 2009 at the Cologne Conference TV Film Festival. Haun was honoured for finding the “right” cast members for the films Alle anderen (Maren Ade), So glücklich war ich noch nie (Alexander Adolph), Hilde (Kai Wessel), Über den Tod hinaus and Willkommen zuhause (Andreas Senn in both). RTL Television scored numerous nominations for the German Comedy Awards. Cindy aus Marzahn und die jungen Wilden and TV-Helden were both nominated for ‘Best Comedy Show’. Nominees for ‘Best Comedy Series’ include the series Der Lehrer, which recently won a German TV Award, and Doctor’s Diary. The RTL Television series 4 Singles is in the running for ‘Best Comedy Sketch’. RTL Television’s World of Comedy is nominated for ‘Best Comedy Event’. Böse Mädchen has hopes of winning an award for ‘Best Hidden Camera’, and two formats aired on RTL Television are in the running for ‘Best Comedy Show’: Schizophren – Ich wollte Nina Haun ‘ne Prinzessin sein by Cindy aus Marzahn and Verschmitzt, the stand-up routine by comedian Pietshow, a Grundy UFA production, was a Ralf Schmitz. Diana Amft, who plays the nominee at this year’s Festival Cinema Tous leading role in Doctor’s Diary, was nominated Ecrans, which administers a ‘Web Series’ as Best Actress. RTL will broadcast the award for innovative new-media formats. The glamorous gala event on 23 October from awards are presented in November.