RTL has relaunched the old Zep and hopes it will land them in ratings heaven when the tv-movie Hindenburg airs in spring 2011. Financially they already know it will be closer to hell: "this is a prestige project" said Barbara Thielen, RTL's head of fiction " a commercial broadcaster can never recoup the cost of such an expensive tv-movie." Surely a public subsidy of € 1.8 million was welcome to limit RTL's losses. Incidentally the movie is shot on a soundstage located in the area of Colognes former Ossendorf airport, which opened in 1909 with an actual Zeppelin landing (right).
Producers wish channels would order more loss leader projects. The German movie and TV producers association complains that 46% of its members expect declining revenue, 40% will reduce head-count and a whopping 70% are facing lowball offers from broadcasters.
The reason for the cost squeeze is simple: if lucky German TV advertisement revenue will this year creep back to where it was ten years ago: to around 4.7 billion euros. In 2003 it had fallen as low as € 3.8bn.
One of the few growth opportunities might be international distribution. So far only 10% of German producers revenues are generated outside the fatherland. In the UK 30% of revenues comes from exporting the brainchilds of Ricky Gervais et al.
To help the old Hindenburg make some foreign coin, Italian Greta Scachi, American Stacy Keach and Canadian Lauren Lee Smith have been invited on board and the zeppelin saga is shot in english.
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