Creation
The creation of Phoenix is credited to the former chancellor Helmut Kohl, who wanted to create a "European Parliamentary Channel". However, the idea was rejected due to criticism by the public channels (ARD and ZDF) and suspicion that political pressure of Kohl could lead to a "Helmut-Kohl-Channel".
The real idea for "Phoenix - Der Ereignis- und Dokumentationskanal" ("Phoenix - the current affairs and documentary channel") came from viewers of ARD and ZDF, who wanted a "media-political correction of faults in the system of information transfer". This created the opportunity to create a "Parliamentary Channel", with the aim of increasing credibility and satisfying consumer demand.
Private channels (RTL and Sat. 1) criticized the creation of Phoenix because they were at the time creating their own news channels (n-tv and N24 respectively).
The headquarters of Phoenix were provisionally situated in Cologne. However in 2000, the headquarters were relocated to studios in Bonn.
Phoenix's highest ratings to date were in August 2006, when it had 1.0% viewer share. With about 4.5 million viewers, it had more viewers than N-TV and N24.
Read more about this topic: Phoenix (German TV Station)
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