ZDF

Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (English: "Second German Television"), ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz (Rheinland-Pfalz). It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states (Bundesländer). ZDF is financed by television licence fees and advertising revenues. The ZDF is well known for its famous TV formats heute (newscast; established in 1963) and Wetten Dass..? (entertainment show; established in 1981).

ZDF was founded in 1961 by federal treaty, after the West German federal government's plan to set up a TV channel controlled by the federal government caused uproar. West Germany's constitution stipulated that regulation of culture and media was a compentency of the federal states (Bundesländer). The station began broadcasting from Eschborn near Frankfurt am Main on 1 April 1963, with a speech by the first director general (Intendant), Dr. Karl Holzamer. 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. Thomas Bellut, the current director general, was elected by the ZDF Television Council in 2011.