''Terra X'' is a brand used by the German

public broadcaster Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive ...

ZDF ZDF (), short for (; ), is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. Launched on 1 April 1963, it is run as an independent nonprofit institution, and was founded by all federal states of Germany ( ...

since 2008. Between 1982 and 2008, the brand name was ''ZDF Expedition''. Some topics under the brand ''Terra X'' are documentaries about history, nature, archaeology and science. The documentaries are broadcast on ZDF. Repeats are also broadcast on

ZDFinfo ZDFinfo is a German free-to-air documentary television channel owned by ZDF. It was launched on 27 August 1997 as ZDFinfokanal, and it became ZDFinfo on 5 September 2011. On 1 May 2012, a high-definition simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau ...

ZDFneo ZDFneo is a German free-to-air television channel, programmed for an audience aged 25 to 49 to complement the primarily older-skewing main channels of public broadcasters ZDF and ARD. It replaced ZDF's documentary channel ZDFdokukanal on 1 N ...

, Phoenix,

Arte Arte (, , ; ' ('), sometimes stylised in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European Union, European public service Television channel, channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based Europea ...

and

3sat 3sat (, ''Dreisat'') is a free-to-air German-language public service television channel. It is a generalist channel with a cultural focus and is jointly operated by public broadcasters from Germany ( ZDF, ARD), Austria ( ORF) and Switzerlan ...

Background

On 17 January 1982, the first ''ZDF Expedition'' documentary was broadcast. In 2008, the name was changed to ''Terra X''. The brand includes documentary series, where a topic will be covered deeper than in usual documentaries. Since the mid 1980s simulations of the past are included for visualization and since the 1990s some historical events are re-enacted with actors. 2018-01-26-DFP 2018-7311

Over 40 documentaries are produced per year under the brand of ''Terra X''. The average cost of a 45-minute-film amounts to €250,000. The documentaries of ''Terra X'' are sold and broadcast internationally, for example in

National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by the National Geographic Global Networks unit of Disney Enter ...

in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. ''Terra X'' is also active on the internet. Beside the ZDF video on demand platform ZDFmediathek, they are publishing documentaries and clips on platforms like

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

. The ''Terra X Lesch & Co'' channel presented by

Harald Lesch Harald Lesch (born 28 July 1960) is a German physicist, astronomer, natural philosopher, author, television presenter, professor of physics at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and professor of natural philosophy at the Munich Un ...

was launched on 3 February 2016. Later that year, their YouTube channel ''Terra X Natur & Geschichte'' started on 15 August, where ''Terra X'' is publishing full documentaries that are also airing on TV. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, ''Terra X'' started the YouTube channel ''Terra X statt Schule'' (''Terra X Instead of School''), where they are publishing different knowledge videos of content that has been already broadcast. In 2019, ''Terra X'' published some clips about the topic

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteoro ...

under CC BY 4.0, so that the clips can be also used in

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

.
„Terra X" wird Wikipedia
'. Access: 3 April 2020.

References

External links

* {{Official, https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/terra-x
Terra X
at

mediathek ZDF original programming German documentary television series 1982 German television series debuts 1980s German television series 1990s German television series 2000s German television series 2010s German television series 2020s German television series