On October 3, 1994, a quarter of a century ago, TeleZüri was launched ( persoenlich.com reported ). Presenter Daniela Lager stood in the middle of the editorial office and casually presented the topics: drug hell at Zurich's Letten, premiere of the musical "Cats", start of the tour of Zurich resident Udo Jürgens. It was the way Zurich liked to see itself back then: wicked, cosmopolitan and, above all, trendy. Looking back, it was a historic moment: for the first time, a commercial private television station was established in Switzerland.
The author is still proud that he was part of the pioneering middle east rcs data team at the time. It is the undisputed achievement of founder Roger Schawinski that within two months he turned print journalists into VJs who were not only TV reporters, but also cameramen and sound operators. The training camp was a back room in the "Limmathaus" in the industrial district. Schawinski had hired New York media man Michael Rosenblum as a "whipper" who - so the story goes - reported from crisis regions for US TV stations with his video camera and - en passant - invented video journalism.
Rosenblum's credo was limited to two sentences: "No panning, no zooming" - and at the end of each training day, the mantra-like call: "You're better than the SRG!" It worked; we were really convinced of it Participants from the very beginning, such as Daniela Lager, Eva Wannenmacher, Reto Brennwald and Gregor Sonderegger, later switched to the SRG. It is bitter irony that Roger Schawinski's talk show was cancelled shortly before the TeleZüri anniversary. Here, too, Rosenblum's motto is comforting: "You're always better than the SRG.