Ricarda Schlosshan is a supervising editor and commissioner for Terra X, the popular primetime documentary slot of German public broadcaster ZDF.
Ricarda described what Terra X is looking for at Sunny Side‘s Science-themed Meet The Executive session.
She shared the details of Terra X’s pipeline:
- 45 new programs per year
- Each film is 44 minutes, sometimes 60 minutes
- 30 are full commissions
- 5-7 are international coproductions
- 7-8 are in house productions.
We are publishing Ricarda’s very informative session as a podcast, though without clips and PPTs that she presented.
Podcast: Listen to Ricarda Schlosshan
Photo: Jean-Francois Auge
More about Ricarda
“I live in Frankfurt am Main and work in Mainz, ZDF headquarters. I started my work as a journalist for the German newspaper “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. In 1996 I joined ZDF, German Public Television, where I have been working as author/producer and as supervising editor for documentary strands ever since. I started off with the department of contemporary history (“Hitlers Henchmen”, “The Germans”; “Royals dynasties” etc.), and then worked for ZDF-Zeit, a program closer to current affairs or consumer-oriented documentaries.
“Since 2013 I am with Terra X, ZDF’s 37 year old prominent prime-time slot for documentaries, mainly as a supervising editor.
“For Terra X, when I attend a documentary market like Sunny Side, I also act as commission editor (I am not the only one in my department) for this slot.
“My latest productions were:
- “Serengeti” (an acquisition from BBC)
- “The Fascination of Water” (a two-part scientific documentary),
- “Lost Knowledge” (a two-part historical documentary).”
Terra X Average Audience
- Four million viewers per week
- 13.2% share of all viewers
- 6.5% share of younger audiences
- So far this year, Terra X is averaging 14% of all viewers.
Listen to all the Sunny Side Science Executive Podcasts
Learn what the buyers and funders are looking for, and how to reach them:
- Playlist of all podcasts
- Sue Dando, CBC Canada, The Nature of Things (available soon!)
- Chris Hoelzl, Smithsonian Networks
- Ricarda Schlosshan, ZDF / Terra X
- Greg Boustead, Science Sandbox
