ZDF

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Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen

Type	Broadcast television network
Country	Germany
Availability	National; also distributed in Austria and Switzerland
Owner	Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen
Key people	Markus Schächter, President
Launch date	April 1, 1963
Website	www.zdf.de

Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen ("Second German Television"), ZDF, is a public service German television channel based in Mainz. It is run as an independent non-profit agency established by joint contract between the German federal states (Länder). ZDF is funded from a television licence and advertising [1].

The station began broadcasting on 1 April 1963 from Eschborn. The channel broadcast its first programme in colour in 1967. In 1974 ZDF moved its base of operations to Mainz-Lerchenberg, after briefly being located in Wiesbaden.

Unlike American television networks, ZDF (and other German TV networks) has no subsidiary stations and broadcasts one signal over a large transmitter network throughout Germany. This network, unlike that of the First German television channel ARD, is run by T-Systems, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom) (formerly by the German postal service Deutsche Bundespost). Prior to the reunification of Germany, ZDF, like ARD, positioned many of its transmitters in locations favourable to its broadcasts being easily receivable in extensive areas of the GDR, where both channels were viewed (illegally) by large parts of the population.

ZDF has also been relayed by cable since the days of the first cable pilot projects. The first Europe-wide satellite broadcast via Astra 1C began in August 1993 during the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin (IFA - "International Broadcasting Exhibition") in Berlin. In the same decade, these new technologies were used to enable the start of digital broadcasting of ZDF. Since 2002 it has been possible to receive ZDF, ARD, and all the major television channels digitally via DVB-T in ever larger areas of the country.

ZDF also operates the channels KI.KA, arte, 3sat and Phoenix in cooperation with other networks. Included in its digital offering ZDFvision are the channels ZDF.dokukanal, ZDF.infokanal and ZDF.theaterkanal. Today ZDF is Europe's largest television network.

ZDF's animated station identity mascots, the Mainzelmännchen (a play with the words "Mainz" and "Heinzelmännchen", the latter meaning "brownies" (elfs) in German), created by Wolf Gerlach in 1963, quickly became very popular and are still shown in between commercials. In 1976 the famous graphic designer otl aicher made a corporate design for ZDF

Administratively ZDF is headed by a director general (Intendant), who is elected by the ZDF Television Council, the composition of which is in turn determined by the "societally relevant groups" named in the ZDF contract. Since the founding of the network in 1963, the following have held the office of Intendant:

1963 - 1977: Karl Holzamer
1977 - 1982: Karl-Günter von Hase
1982 - 2002: Dieter Stolte
since 2002: Markus Schächter

ZDF was admitted as a full active member of the European Broadcasting Union in 1963.