New Director-General takes office at ZDF

Thomas Bellut, who was chosen last year as ZDF’s new Director-General by its governing body, the Television Council, assumed office this week.

Bellut was ZDF’s Director of Programming from December 2002. He is a journalist with a doctorate in Political Science and prior to his programming role, he had worked on ZDF’s domestic current affairs coverage for ten years.

In announcing the appointment late last year, the governing body’s Chairman, Ruprecht Polenz, commented on the Council’s support of Bellut: ” Having known Thomas Bellut for many years, we are in a very good position to judge his qualities as a manager and programming executive. He is one of this country’s really outstanding media managers.”

Speaking on his first day as Director-General, Thomas Bellut declared his intention to establish ZDF as the leader in quality programming on the German market. “Thanks to its central organisation, ZDF can operate in Germany with great flexibility. This means that, as a national broadcaster, we can compete on quality and take up the challenge of being number one on German television,” said Bellut.

Thomas Bellut’s former role as ZDF’s Director of Programming is to be taken by Norbert Himmler from April 1. Himmler has been head of movies at ZDF since 2008 and more recently he headed the build of the digital channel ZDFneo.