Walter Köhler

TV Real Weekly, July 30, 2008

Head of Natural History/Universum

Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF)

When the nominees for the News and Documentary Emmy Awards were announced earlier this month, among the contenders was Nature Tech. Broadcast on the Smithsonian Channel in the U.S., the series, which picked up an award at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival last year, was produced by Austrian pubcaster ORF. The two Emmy nods were the latest in a string of accolades for ORF’s natural history, history and science strand, Universum.

An Austrian institution that last year celebrated its 20th anniversary, Universum broadcasts blue-chip documentaries in prime time, two times per week, delivering market shares of up to 25 percent. Universum’s output stands at between 80 and 90 productions a year, with about a quarter of those produced by ORF, together with international partners, according to Walter Köhler, the head of ORF’s natural-history unit. Aligning with international partners has been key to offsetting the costs of blue-chip wildlife documentaries. As Köhler notes: “We never produce under 300,000 euros per hour. Budgets, for a single hour, could be 800,000 euros.”

For Köhler, the Universum films, while tackling an array of subject matter, all have one thing in common: “visual quality. This is how everything started 20 years ago, long before HD. We were really in the business to keep the camera moving to new horizons with new techniques, different systems.”

This commitment to top-quality images prompted ORF to shift all of its natural-history output to high definition last year. As important as stunning pictures, however, is a strong story line and compelling subject matter, Köhler notes. Universum, he says, “takes a message to the audience.” As such, Universum has become firmly established in Austrian society. “For example, if you take a taxi [in Austria] and you ask about the universe, for most drivers it would not be the cosmos, it would be the television show. It’s a part of your life. And what’s more, in our country it became a quality standard.”

Köhler has witnessed first hand the evolution of Universum, having been involved with the strand since its early days. He first joined the broadcaster as a freelance journalist and quickly moved to the science department where he produced and directed his first Universum titles. For Köhler, those early assignments allowed him to realize, in part, a childhood ambition. “When I was 6 years old I wanted to be a zoologist. I studied journalism and worked for a lot of newspapers, but didn’t forget my old love!”

By the mid-90s, Köhler had assumed responsibility for the entire natural-history division. “There’s never a routine,” says Köhler on what he enjoys most about his position today. “We are calling this an industry. But if you’re in an industry you’re producing nails and keys! We are producing prototypes all the time. Every production is different. The problems and challenges are always different. This makes it amazing.”

—By Mansha Daswani