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Tele-5 flagship "SchleFaZ" (with Peter Rütten and Oliver Kalkofe)
Photo:
Sven Knoch / TELE 5
The new managing director of Tele 5, Alberto Horta, informed the station's employees about planned layoffs via video conference.
This is unanimously reported by the media services Meedia and DWDL.
Accordingly, the form in which the message was delivered is due to the corona situation.
This should not apply to the apparently imminent layoffs of more than half of the employees.
Horta is also deputy managing director of Discovery Germany.
The subsidiary of the US media company already operates special-interest programs such as DMAX, TLC, Home & Garden TV or Eurosport - and of course the Discovery Channel.
Since September 1st, Discovery has also taken over Tele 5 from Leonine, the media holding of US financial investor KKR.
According to media reports, the workforce was announced in that video call that invitations to dismissal talks would be sent.
According to this, 35 people took part in a later meeting with the works council.
According to »Meedia«, the station currently employs almost 70 people.
The announcement shortly before Christmas met with "incomprehension and horror" among those affected, they say.
Apparently, Discovery wants to get rid of double structures.
The reduction in jobs is due to the closer integration of Tele 5 with the existing structures of Discovery, according to »DWDL«, especially in advertising marketing, but also in the personnel department and broadcast planning.
The Tele 5 managing director and Discovery manager Horta stated in a press release that it was correct that "various measures" were currently being implemented "in order to make Tele 5's business economically sustainable for the future in times of uncertainty."
That will also affect the internal structures.
However, they want to first discuss the topic with the works council and those affected and therefore not comment on it in more specific terms at the moment.
Concern about the sender profile
With the entry of Discovery Germany, the long-time station boss Kai Blasberg had said goodbye.
In an interview with the industry service »Blickpunkt Film«, Blasberg announced in April 2020 that Tele 5 had »made more profits last year than ever before, and we have never had so many viewers either«.
In the corona crisis, the number of viewers continued to rise significantly.
Blasberg had positioned the station with special access to trash content on the German TV market: in the series »SchleFaZ« the worst films of all time are commented on with loving mockery, the filmmaker and writer Oskar Roehler presents scandal films;
in the meantime they tried their hand at in-house productions such as the talk show "Der Klügere Kippt nach".
Not everything was received, but there was a certain uniqueness that Tele 5 could not deny.
In view of the latest reports, the »Meedia« editor-in-chief is now concerned with precisely this station profile and comments on the industry news under the heading »How Tele 5 is losing its soul«.
At the most recent program presentation, reported by the »DWDL«, the content initially seemed to remain the same.
Frank Blasberg, who had previously thought of the soccer talk »Doppelpass«, has left the industry.
He told the »Süddeutsche Zeitung« that he wanted to get involved in the agricultural sector in the future.
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