The sorry state of German News Channels

Others might spend on a roost of retired football stars to analyze forthcoming World Championship games. Not German News Channel n-tv: their resident armchair coach seems to be Paul the Octopus. Today n-tv shocked Germany with Paul predicting a loss in Wednesdays semi-finals against Spain. The piece was on heavy rotation all day. Such frugality - Pauls salary seems to be a mollusk - is the hallmark of Germanys ailing news TV business. n-tv used to be a RTL/CNN joint venture, in 2006 RTL took over the americans share. German regulators initially blocked the deal until RTL could prove that absolutely nobody wanted the channel, even if offered for just one single euro. A month ago rival newscaster n24 was cut loose by corporate parent pro7 in a management buyout. Although a price of up to 60 million euros was rumored, the new n24 owners got a nice little dowry - a six year deal delivering news to pro7 group. So we'll never know about the actual valuation of this hot property ( hot as in hot potato ?).

BTW: Paul's predictions proved correct so far... see the master at work below