Documentaries have always been a key element of MIPTV due to MIPDoc, which this year is integrated to the market conference lineup. “Actual Programming Brief: ZDF Enterprises” presented Kristina Hollstein, director acquisitions & co-productions documentaries/Children & Youth ZDF, ZDF Enterprises, who described the audience evolution in Germany and content diversification for its linear and nonlinear platforms.
‘During 2020, we acquire and coproduce more than 600 hours of content, an increase of nearly +40% overall and of course, the biggest increase was for our digital channels. From that number, 20-30 were co-productions for the most prominent slots in the channels’.
Launched in 1982, Terra X Dokumentationen is ZDF’ most prestigious documentary brand in German television broadcast on Sunday evenings. ‘We have 45 minutes and the productions dear with wildlife, history, geology, archeology which work really well for us. Since 2002, the last year was the best in terms of audience share, surpassing 14%’, she explained.
‘We don’t have one style on the documentary side, we have many: we work with well-known presenters to orientate the program to the audience. In terms of topics, history works very well. But the question is the approach: titanic, Pompei, Egypt, those are the biggest for us’, added Hollstein.
