N24 (Germany)

N24 is a television news channel based in Germany. It is owned N24 Media GmbH. It was previously owned and operated by ProSiebenSat.1 Media. N24 provides regular news updates to ProSiebenSat.1 Media properties like kabel eins and ProSieben.

History

In the late 1990s, during the heat of the dot-com bubble ProSieben Media Group, then consisting of two TV channels (ProSieben and Kabel 1) whose programming largely consisted of US movies, sitcoms and series, tried to take over German television news channel n-tv, then owned by Handelsblatt and CNN. After this had failed finally, ProSieben Media purchased German newswire ddp (now dapd) and announced the launch of its own news channel soon afterwards, by consolidating ProSieben's news department. The channel was launched on January 24, 2000 at noon, from ProSieben Media's headquarter in Unterföhring near Munich. In collaboration with Bloomberg Television, N24 provided live coverage of financial markets around the world. Apart from running its own network, N24 also provided ProSieben and Kabel 1 with newscasts.

During the same year, ProSieben Media AG purchased rival channel Sat.1, located in Berlin, which had a news department of its own and ran a number of factual programmes. ProSieben Media AG renamed itself ProSiebenSat1 Media AG afterwards. After the merger, N24 moved from Unterföhring into Sat1's headquarter in Berlin in July 2001, and the news departments of Sat1 and N24 were combined.

In 2002, ProSiebenSat1's majority owner, KirchMedia, files for bankruptcy. While ProSiebenSat1 itself was not broke, an enduring search for a new owner, during which ProSiebenSat1 was owned by KirchMedia's banks effectively, lead to a lot of insecurity to the company. For this and due the market crisis after the dot.com bubble and 9/11, ProSiebenSat1 began to cut costs, and replaced a number of newscasts on N24, especially in the afternoons, the evenings and on the weekends, with cheaper documentaries. Also business and stock market coverage was cut dramatically, and remaining business reports were bought from CNBC Europe instead of producing them themselves.^[1] The reports feature CNBC’s proprietary graphics. In 2007, N24 strengthened its business coverage, introducing daily programmes such as Börse am Mittag ["Stock market Afternoon"] and Börse am Abend ["Stock market Evening"]. The channel moved its headquarters in October 2008.^[2]

In 2008, ProSiebenSat1 sold its Berlin estates, and announced that Sat1 would move to Unterföhring into the company's headquarters, where ProSieben and Kabel 1 already resided, while N24 would relocate within Berlin. In 2010, ProSiebenSat1 sold N24 to a group of privatees, led by the former Der Spiegel editor Stefan Aust. N24 was contracted by ProSiebenSat1 to remain providing Sat1, ProSieben and Kabel 1 with newscasts at least until 2016.

Programming

N24 previously broadcast a variety of programming, with more than seven hours of live programming per business day. CNBC correspondents Silvia Wadhwa, Patricia Szarvas, Roland Klaus, Michael Mross and Bruni Schubert report live from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the LSE and the NYSE throughout the day. Since August 2010, news programming has been cut back, with no program lasting more than 15 minutes.

Previous N24 newscasts:

Anchors and Reporters

N24 reporter Steffen Schwarzkopf in Cologne, reporting about the collapse of the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne

References

External links

• Official Website (in German)