1988–1993 On 13 October 1988, ProSieben Television GmbH was founded as a successor to Eureka TV. The founding partners were Gerhard Ackermans (51%) and Thomas Kirch (49%). Shortly after, Kirch took complete control of the channel. On 1 January 1989, ProSieben began broadcasting nine hours of programming a day from
Munich. The CEO was Georg Kofler from
South Tyrol. ProSieben had 70 employees at that time and claimed to reach 2.44 million viewers. with 41.6 percent. The
chairman was Georg Kofler. In 1996, ProSieben was granted a nationwide broadcast license and launched its Internet site. That same year, ProSieben bought AT & TV Merchandising Concepts GmbH and Merchandising München KG. Sales rose to DM 1.69 billion.
Berlin brought the inauguration of the DM 12 million ProSieben building in 1998. Kirch Media AG held 58.4% of ProSieben Media AG in 1998. A
news channel,
N24 was started in 1999, it went on the air in early 2000. ProSieben wanted to compete with
n-tv, which was very popular, mainly because of the
stock market boom, and enlarge its family of channels. N24 now has a bigger audience share than n-tv, but is no longer owned by the company. In 1998, ProSieben took over the news agency ddp. On 19 September 1999, ProSieben began broadcasting digital multichannel sound in
Dolby Digital format.
2000–2007 At the end of 1999, Thomas Kirch brought over his shares in
KirchMedia, his father's company, which then made up the majority shares of Sat.1 and ProSieben-Gruppe. On 1 February 2000, the Swiss business lawyer Urs Rohner was appointed CEO of ProSieben; Georg Kofler, who was the CEO of ProSieben since its inception, resigned from the company. Urs Rohner had no experience in the television business. He was appointed at the request of
Leo Kirch to legally secure the fusion between Sat.1 and ProSieben. In March 2000, the ProSieben subsidiary SevenSenses was established, to which in June 2004 merged with the SZM Studios to create the ProSiebenSat.1 Produktion GmbH. On 13 October 2000, 12 years after the founding of ProSieben, the first shares from ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG were traded at the
Frankfurt Stock Exchange. In the following month, the merger of the marketing companies occurred between Media Group Munich (ProSieben) and MEDIA 1, creating SevenOne Media. With the merger came the founding of the ProSieben Television GmbH, which operates the ProSieben television station. Managing director of ProSieben was Nicolas Paalzow in 2000. He was succeeded in May 2004 by Dejan Jocic, who was then replaced in December 2005 by Andreas Bartl - who was previously CEO of
kabel eins. In May 2008, Thilo Proff became chief of the station, followed by Jürgen Hörner (April 2011). Since August 2012, Wolfgang Link is the managing director of ProSieben. After 2003, the ProSiebenSat.1 Media belonged to a group of investors surrounding
Haim Saban. In 2005,
Axel Springer SE wanted to take over ProSieben for about €2.2 billion, which would have created the third-largest media group in Europe. This purchase, however, at the end of 2005 / beginning of 2006 was not authorized by the
Federal Cartel Office and the Commission on Concentration in the Media. On 31 January 2006, Springer finally announced the failure of the takeover. Saban stuck to the intention to sell the channel. On 14 December 2006, the investment companies
KKR and
Permira took over a majority shares (50.5%) of the stock capital of ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG and became new majority shareholder.
Post-2007 On 12 February 2015, ProSieben launched a new on-air design, focusing on "new dimensions". Its slogan and
sound trademark remained unchanged. The new look debuted at 8:13 pm, just before the premiere of
season 10 of Germany's Next Topmodel. == Programmes==