My Back Pages – 40 Years of Entertainment!

1968 – 1978

At the age of 18, I was onstage with a guitar and harmonica, singing Bob Dylan Donovan songs. 1968 and the following years have strongly shaped my political views and my social mindset – a fact that still has an effect on me today: I reject TV formats with voyeuristic content just as much as shows entertaining the audience by spitefulness and malice.

1978 - 1988

Finally, after several years of freelancing, the complete step into the TV business at the age of 28! As a salaried editor at first, later on as an independent producer. I met Thomas Gottschalk, Frank Elstner, Blacky Fuchsberger, and Günther Jauch and together we shaped TV classics such as “Auf Los geht’s los”, “Wetten, dass?”, “Na Sowas!”, “Na Siehste”, and “Menschen”. A really great decade in which nearly all TV shows followed the principle of “journalistic entertainment”. 

1988 - 1998

The private TV networks allured with lots of money – and Thomas and I said yes to the challenge! On a weekly basis with “Gottschalk” at first, later daily with the very first Late-Night-Show on German television.

Disagreements with RTL about the focus of content had the sudden result of Thomas and me going separate ways. But we remained friends, and I designed the first lottery show for Günther Jauch: “Millionär gesucht – die SKL-Show” for RTL. In addition I produced my first big television films, such as “Risiko Null” for SAT1 and “Tödliches Wochenende” for ARD.

1998 - 2008

“Millionär gesucht – die SKL-Show” with Günther Jauch was on RTL for over six years. “Die Geiseln von Costa Rica” and “Gefangen im Jemen” followed – two extremely elaborate and costly event movies I produced for ProSieben. Gottschalk and I were reunited by the two ZDF Saturday-night shows “50 Jahre Rock”.

TV-events with Mikhail Gorbachev and Hans-Dietrich Genscher were among the highlights, same as my first show production for the Arab market. The ministry of culture of the sheikdom Qatar assigned HDTV with the production of “The International Dance Show from Qatar”, featuring world’s greatest dance ensembles!