Welt (German TV channel)


Welt is a German free-to-air television news channel owned by WeltN24 GmbH. It also provides regular news updates to ProSiebenSat.1 Media properties like ProSieben and kabel eins.
On 21 September 2017, WeltN24 announced that N24 would be rebranded as "Welt" on 18 January 2018. WeltN24 also publishes Die Welt, a conservative-leaning newspaper.

History

In the late 1990s, in the heat of the dot-com bubble ProSieben Media Group, then consisting of two TV channels 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 the attempt failed, ProSieben Media purchased German newswire ddp and announced the launch of its own news channel soon afterwards, by consolidating ProSieben's news department. The channel was launched on 24 January 2000 at noon, from ProSieben Media's headquarters 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, Welt also provided ProSieben and Kabel 1 with newscasts.
In 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 ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG afterwards. After the merger, N24 moved from Unterföhring to Sat.1's headquarters in Berlin in July 2001, and the news departments of Sat.1 and N24 were combined.
In 2002, ProSiebenSat.1's majority owner, KirchMedia, filed for bankruptcy. While ProSiebenSat.1 itself was not broke, an extended search for a buyer, during which ProSiebenSat.1 was effectively owned by KirchMedia's banks, created uncertainty at the company. This combined with the market crisis after the end of the dotcom bubble and 9/11, caused ProSiebenSat.1 to cut costs. It replaced a number of newscasts on N24, especially in the afternoons, the evenings and on the weekends, with cheaper documentaries. Business and stock market coverage was also cut dramatically, and remaining business reports were bought from CNBC Europe instead of producing them in-house. The reports featured CNBC's proprietary graphics. In 2007, N24 strengthened its business coverage, introducing daily programmes such as Börse am Mittag and Börse am Abend . The channel moved its headquarters in October 2008.
In 2008, ProSiebenSat.1 sold its property in Berlin and announced that Sat.1 would move to Unterföhring, where ProSieben and Kabel 1 were already based. N24 would relocate within Berlin. In 2010, ProSiebenSat.1 sold N24 to a group of private investors, led by former Der Spiegel editor Stefan Aust. N24 was contracted by ProSiebenSat.1 to continue providing Sat.1, ProSieben and Kabel 1 with newscasts at least until 2016. In 2013, N24 was acquired by Axel Springer SE and combined with Die Welt to form WeltN24.
On 17 September 2016, a sister channel called N24 Doku launched free to air, which is a one-hour delayed timeshift channel of Welt in the afternoon and replaces some news broadcasts by documentaries in the morning.

Programming

Welt 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 Welt newscasts:
ProgramHostsDescription
Frühreport
Christina Prüver, Thomas Spahnan early morning news program with pre-market business headlines
Morgenreport
Tatjana Ohm, Thomas Kluga morning news program with comments from talk show hosts such as Hajo Schumacher, Claus Strunz and Michel Friedman
Mittagsreport
Alexandra Karle, Alexander Priviteraa mid-day news program
Börse am Mittag
Dietmar Deffnera business and financial news program in the afternoon
Börse am Abend
Thomas Schwarzera business and financial news program in the evening
Welt Nachrichten
Welt Anchorsregular news updates between two minutes and a half-hour, no live-programming overnight

Currently, Welt runs news on the hour, every hour.

Anchors and reporters

Talk

On 9 June 2016, WeltN24 announced to launch N24 Doku as the timeshift branch of N24 in autumn 2016. The new station waits in the morning for the takeover of the message rail of Welt and radiates always from 14 clock the program of Welt by one hour time offset. In addition, the treadmill known from Welt is dispensed with. Whether N24 Doku maintains the word mark N24 also after the conversion of N24 into WELT, is according to WeltN24 not yet decided. On 20 July 2016, it was announced that the broadcaster would start on 17 September 2016.

Austrian feed

On 27 April 2012 the SES Astra satellite platform has been showing an Austrian subfeed of N24. Nothing has been reported to the press about the launch of the station. A few days later, the transmitter was switched off again. On 16 July 2012 the broadcasting code N24 HD Austria was launched. On 2 April 2016, N24 Austria started its broadcast via Astra 1N. On 18 January 2018 N24 Austria was replaced by N24 Doku Austria.

Station logos