What Broadcasters Know #1

What Broadcasters Do

On May 23, 2026, ARD broadcasted the DFB Cup final between FC Bayern Munich and VfB Stuttgart live from the Berlin Olympiastadion. 6.79 million people tuned in. Among 14 to 49-year-olds, the broadcast achieved a market share of 50.6 percent, meaning every second television in this age group was tuned to ARD. (Source: digitalfernsehen.de, May 27, 2026)

What is easily overlooked in this: ARD did not start this day at 8:00 PM. It started at 11:20 AM with the Final Day of the Amateurs, a format that broadcasts cup finals from the regional associations, for the eleventh consecutive time. A complete programming day, built around a single evening event. (Source: ARD press release, presseportal.de, April 2026)

This is no coincidence. Broadcasters have always built their programming around events. The final is the anchor. Everything else—the pre-game coverage, the expert panels, the morning amateur matches—is context that makes this anchor bigger.

What This Means for Businesses

Most companies produce communication like a broadcaster on continuous transmission mode. Newsletters are published weekly. LinkedIn posts follow the editorial calendar. Blog posts appear regularly. This is correct and important, because permanent programming is the foundation of all visibility.

But when everything is weighted equally, the audience decides for themselves what is important. Usually, that ends up being nothing.

Broadcasters therefore think on two levels. The first level is the ongoing programming; it maintains the connection to the audience. The second level consists of events—moments designed so that people don't want to miss them. The final. The premiere. The year-in-review show.

For a company, such an event can take many forms. An annual event where things aren't just presented, but something is actually decided or revealed. A client conversation that is conducted publicly and answers real questions. A study whose results are not published as a PDF, but are presented and discussed live.

The ultimate test is simple: If someone misses this appointment, do they actually miss out on something? If the honest answer is no, it is not an event. It is programming.

Why This is Becoming More Important Right Now

AI produces content at a speed and volume that was unthinkable a few years ago. Texts, explainer videos, social media posts—everything is getting faster, more abundant, cheaper. The sheer volume of content is rising, while the available attention remains the same or even decreases.

In this environment, non-reproducible moments gain value. A live conversation. A real encounter. A result that exists for the first time in that very moment. David Sax describes exactly this counter-movement in his book "The Future is Analog": not that technology is disappearing, but that analog moments gain value in a digital world because they become rarer.

The DFB Cup final had 6.79 million viewers, even though anyone could have watched the highlights on their smartphone just a few minutes later. People still tuned in live. Because the experience of being there when something happens cannot be replaced.

The Question

Which event in the communication calendar of the next twelve months would a company's best clients describe as truly indispensable?

If the answer is hard to find, what is missing is not output. It is the anchor. For those who want to set this anchor together with us, you can find the first step here: From Noise to Programming.