Once of all please – so you could make plans for RTL direct understand in advance. News, talks with prominent guests and finally something to smile about, all live from Berlin. A wild mix for a 20-minute news program that anchorman Jan Hofer has to master from now on, alternating with Pinar Atalay – that came true on a day like this. When starting RTL direct So on this news-rich Monday, Jan Hofer was noticeably excited when he greeted his first guest, Annalena Baerbock, in the new dark blue studio.
In Berlin, one had expected a more relaxed news situation for the first broadcast in the middle of August. With an opportunity to talk to the candidate for chancellor in peace. But the pictures of the airport in Kabul and of the Taliban in Afghanistan’s presidential palace had been around the world since the weekend. Started with them RTL direct and the short news item about it was the only moment on the show when you can hear it with the Daily Topics could have confused. RTL direct runs from Monday to Thursday at 10:15 p.m., so it starts with this broadcast time Daily Topics the ARD in competition.
“We have to talk about Afghanistan first. Has the situation overwhelmed you too?”
The show is the new prestige format of the station, which has greatly expanded and revamped its news in recent months, including by poaching Jan Hofer and Pinar Atalay from ARD. The broadcast environment of RTL direct is now a little different from the news in the first. The show ran between Farmer is looking for a woman internationally and the tabloid magazine RTL Extra with Nazan Eckes – but of course she is very different from that Daily Topics. It deserves the name “news show” rather than “news show”.
Close to people and happy not to be too negative RTL direct be, that is understood even in this first broadcast, which has to begin with Kabul. So a mixture of the serious Hofer, and from autumn also the serious Atalay, and in the course of the program increasingly entertaining elements. A somewhat awkward journey from the hard news to the satirical contribution. “We have to talk about Afghanistan first,” says Hofer, introducing Annalena Baerbock. “Has the situation overwhelmed you too?”
With his Hanseatic courtesy, his almost trustworthy and now tie-free manner, Hofer asked Baerbock at the beginning how she would behave as Chancellor of Kabul? “Get people out of there immediately,” replies. The program ends with Baerbock, who says about the upcoming federal election to Hofer: “If you dare, too Let’s dance to go, then I also believe that we can trust this country to renew itself. ”Excited smiles on both sides RTL direct always downright cute, which is actually not known about news formats up to now. In any case, the broadcaster should be happy about Baerbock’s cross-promotion.
In view of the situation in Kabul and the one or other digital gimmick of the show (Baerbock was able to select videos from viewers who then asked her a question), the focus of the evening was somewhat lost. It actually read: “How green will Germany be – and what will it cost us?” In addition, a contribution provided an approach familiar from RTL: A family of five was accompanied when shopping in an organic and a non-organic supermarket and made the cost test. The organic purchase was unsurprisingly more expensive, Baerbock was allowed to contribute that she would counteract this as Chancellor.
In “heute journal”, Marietta Slomka interviewed a Bundeswehr soldier who is committed to helping Afghan local workers in Kabul
Meanwhile, she was sitting in front of a digital painting. Behind Baerbock, a screen that filled the image showed a field of rape, sometimes crates of vegetables. Compared to the news formats of the public broadcasters, the viewer-oriented but low-content implementation of the topic of green politics clearly falls behind. Likewise, the idea of wanting to dismiss the audience with a smile, in the first broadcast through a satirical contribution by Abdelkarim. Plenty for 20 minutes. Very.
And even if Hofer’s charm carries through the show, he doesn’t make up for the decision not to concentrate on the people in Afghanistan on this day.
On ZDF today’s Journal At about the same time, Marietta Slomka interviewed the Bundeswehr soldier Marcus Grotian, who is committed to helping Afghan local workers in Kabul. People who were not given a way out by the federal government until it was too late. “Now we are letting 80 percent of them fall into the hands of the Taliban,” says the soldier in the remarkable conversation. Someone who is also close to the people, but to those who this hour would really have been about.