Hans Meiser: Obituary for the father of the afternoon talk show

At the age of 77, Hans Meiser died of unexpected heart failure, the radio station he founded – Radio Wellenrausch – announced on Monday. Meiser’s legacy, especially for the German television landscape, is immense.

Hans Meiser: TV legend dies at the age of 77

Meiser was born on August 20, 1946, shortly after the end of the war, in Bad Rothenfelde in Lower Saxony. As a teenager, Meiser founded his first radio station, “Krankenhaus-Funk”. He later worked at Südwestfunk in Baden-Baden. In the 1980s he ended up in private television. From 1984 to 1992 he was the spokesman for the news program “7 vor 7” on RTLplus, the predecessor of RTL.

In 1988, Meiser was part of the journalists who were there live when the Gladbeck hostage-takers kept the Republic in suspense for several days. When the drama began in August 1988, it was he who called the bank branch and spoke to one of the hostage takers. “Who are you?” asked he politely as the receiver was picked up. “Well, who? The bank robber,” replied the hostage taker Dieter Degowski.

An exchange that only lasted a few seconds, for which Meiser was sharply criticized afterwards. In 2016 he spoke about the events at the time in “Spiegel”. “It was just an attempt to get information. I thought, ‘The bank is so big, they can’t possibly guard all the rooms. Let’s call an extension, maybe we can get a hostage who can tell how they’re doing. ‘ Then suddenly it was Degowski’s turn. Our conversation lasted maybe 14 seconds, then he hung up. You can hear in my voice how excited I was,” he said and also found self-critical words. “I think these people have no right to talk about their actions on television. But it happened, I can’t take it back. Maybe the idea was just stupid, I don’t know.”

The father of the afternoon talk show

Meiser achieved cult status in the course of the 1990s as the father of the afternoon talk show. In his program named after him, normal people had their say and talked about their sometimes very personal problems. Single parents who were looking for a partner had their say, as did relatives of alcohol addicts. The topics of the programs were diverse. Meiser’s talk show became cult, and similar formats followed on several channels.

But at the beginning there was criticism – and not too briefly, as Meiser explained to “Spiegel” in 2016. “There was a lot of headwind. For six weeks our ratings were unmeasurable. We were the black hole in the television universe. When I was at a couple’s house for a barbecue, she shouted: ‘You’re inviting the dregs of society, they’re subhumans!’ ” he recalled. “I told her that I hated such formulations. But later I heard her discussing a program of mine in detail with a friend – even though she had previously said she wouldn’t watch this ‘nonsense’.

The “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” attested that Meiser sometimes learned more about German reality from him “than in well-intentioned social reports.” For the show, Meiser and his team received, among other things, a Golden Camera and a Bambi.

After declining viewership, Meiser hosted the last edition of his daily talk show in January 2001. Various TV jobs for various channels followed. A few years ago, Meiser was also seen in Jan Böhmermann’s “Neo Magazine Royale”, where he was no longer employed after he spread conspiracy theories on a website. At the end of his life, Meiser worked for radio again. And he had a lot planned, as can be read from the farewell letter from his broadcaster colleagues. “Hans’ last wish was that we continue to run the radio station and overcome the difficult start with many hurdles and not give up. The motivation, the fun and the goal of creating a great radio station must not be lost,” says the statement.

Sources: AFP // “FAZ”