The talk show cult moderators: a look at their life today!

The talk show cult moderators: a look at their life today!

The German television landscape experienced a real boom in talk shows in the 90s and 2000s that captivated the audience. One of the defining formats was the talk show by Hans Meiser in 1992 and an impressive market share of over 40% reached. However, this program was discontinued in March 2001. After his return to the moderation with "Talk of Town - The Hans Meiser Show" on Radio Regenbogen between 2013 and 2023, Meiser withdrew from television. The moderator died of heart failure on October 30, 2023 at the age of 77.

In addition to Hans Meiser, other cult figures are also one of the concise faces of the talk show era. Arabella Kiesbauer , she moderated her show until 2004 before she was dropped due to a sinking quotas. Today she is active in the Austrian version of "Bauer sucht Frau" and as a moderator of the RTLZWEIS show "Fight of Reality Stars". Bärbel Schäfer began in 1995 and stayed on the air until 2002. She has been running the HR3 radio show "Der Sonntagstalk" since 2009 and has been presenting the "Emergency Call" documentary series on Sat.1.

The evolution of the talk show

talk shows have become an integral part of German television over the years, with the concept increasingly shaped by everyday problems of normal people. During the beginning in the mid-1990s daily talk shows Like "Vera on noon" or "Sonja" vera int-veen and Sonja Zietlow moderated a variety of topics to personal conflicts. These formats often refrained from political content and pulled the audience into their spell with emotionalized and staged articles

While the Daily talk shows at the best broadcast time with up to 2 million viewers attracted a lot of people to the screen every day, this popularity was influenced by temporal trends. Towards the end of the 1990s, the public interest in real situations subsided, which led to the setting of various formats. In addition to the emotional content, the zeitgeist also played a role. So the topics of the shows shifted increasingly towards sensationalist content.

The continuation of the talk show tradition

In recent years, many former moderators from the classic talk formats have reinvented themselves. For example, the long-time talk show presenter Sonja Zietlow also successfully successfully at RTL in the reality show " Get me out of here! " And in 2024 it was even for the RTL program "The traitors-don't trust anyone!" awarded the German TV Prize. Jörg pilawa , however, has been seen since 2023 with "The 1% quiz" at Sat.1

With the constant change in television consumption and the preferences of the audience, it remains to be seen how the talk shows on German television will develop. The competition is great, especially against the background of the increasing popularity of show series and casting shows, which according to a current Statista-Mauma in the 14- to 49-year-olds.