Peter Kloeppel confidently presents the news on “RTL Aktuell”. No matter what happens, as we now know.
Ironically, the lights in the studio went out when the word space came out. As RTL newsModerator Peter Kloeppel read the news of British billionaire Richard Branson and his trip into space on Sunday evening, the screen went black. And Kloeppel continued to moderate as if he hadn’t expected anything else. Into the blackness, into the nothingness, into the endless expanses of the television galaxy. Kloeppel added elegantly to the message from the space billionaire: “And if you can no longer see me, but only hear me, I can only tell you: The light has gone out in the studio.”
The glowing background was gone, the studio headlights off, only the cameras continued to run with the emergency power generator, RTL later explained. Power failure, a fire in a switch box in the basement of the Cologne studios was to blame. So what remained was Peter Kloeppel, illuminated with the flashlight of his own smartphone. He has been the show’s chief presenter for almost two decades, nothing upsets the man. It was a bit like sitting at a candlelight dinner with him, a moderator and his messages, nothing else. Great.
News in the dark, it almost looked like art
Even when switching to the space airport in New Mexico, it remained dark, Kloeppel then also talked to his sports colleague Andreas von Thien, who also had the lights off, and brought the show to an end. Kloeppel confidently led the audience through the endless darkness. And the team from RTL News, that is the enlightening realization, suddenly no longer produced a simple news program, but art.