ZDF (German: [ˌtsɛt.deːˈʔɛf] ), short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (German: [ˈtsvaɪtəs ˈdɔʏtʃəs ˈfɛʁnzeːn] ; lit. 'Second German Television'), is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. Launched on 1 April 1963, it is run as an independent nonprofit institution, and was founded by all federal states of Germany (Bundesländer). ZDF is financed by television licence fees and advertising revenues.

The broadcaster is well known for its famous programmes heute, a newscast established in 1963, and Wetten, dass..?, an entertainment show that premiered in 1981, with a suspension from 2014 to 2021. Norbert Himmler, ZDF's director general, was elected by the ZDF Television Council in 2021.

History

In 1959, the government of Konrad Adenauer began preparations to form a second nationwide television network with the intention of competing with ARD. Adenauer perceived ARD's news coverage to be too critical of his government, and believed that two of the organizations primarily responsible for its news reporting – the Deutsche Presse-Agentur and Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk, which produced the nightly Tagesschau – were too close to the opposition Social Democratic Party (SPD) to ever be able to report neutrally on his Christian Democratic Union government. The new television company called the Freies Fernsehen Gesellschaft (Free Television Society) but derisively called Adenauer-Fernsehen (Adenauer's television) by critics, was founded on 25 July 1960.

The Deutsche Bundespost began constructing a second transmitter network on UHF channels, which required new reception equipment. For older receivers, a converter was sold for about 80 DM (equivalent to €195 in 2021). As with the earlier ARD television network, the location of the transmitters was carefully planned to ensure the entire country would be able to receive the programming.