Crowd­funding completed in record time

2 September 2020. “KLIMA° vor acht” – that is the name of a new programme focusing on the climate crisis. Yesterday evening at 7.55 pm, the crowd­funding campaign for this ambi­tious project went live – and in a record time of three and a half hours after the campaign launched, the total target of 20,000 euros had already been reached. The aim of “KLIMA° vor acht” is to advance climate coverage on German tele­vi­sion and to encourage all broad­casters to include similar programmes in their sched­ules.

The team behind the project aims to demon­strate how aspects of the climate crisis can be commu­nic­ated to a wide audi­ence even in short-form formats – based on scientific facts. A total of six epis­odes of the three- to five-minute tele­vi­sion programme “KLIMA° vor acht” are being produced.

“The ARD has been broad­casting ‘Börse vor acht’ for 20 years now. Yet only one in six citizens owns shares. But the climate crisis affects us all: broad­casters must finally start taking it seri­ously and report on it regu­larly in a prom­inent slot,” says Dr Mario Hütten­hofer, co-initi­ator of “KLIMA° vor acht”.

About the project

To bring the project to fruition, more than a dozen people, many of whom have their roots in the climate move­ment, have joined forces as ‘Team KLIMA° vor acht’; they are all working on the project on a volun­tary basis. A crowd­funding campaign was launched on Start­next to finance the project. Having quickly reached the funding target of 20,000 euros, the six epis­odes will be produced in the autumn and made avail­able online.

“The funding target was reached in no time at all. This demon­strates immense interest and a great need for a new format: the way we report on the climate crisis urgently needs to change. We need compre­hensive know­ledge of this crisis, not only to identify appro­priate solu­tions but also to imple­ment them,” says Julia Zwick, co-initi­ator of “KLIMA° vor acht”.

A long-standing demand

The call for a regular tele­vi­sion programme on the climate crisis is not a new one. To date, over 26,500 people have signed a peti­tion to the ARD calling for ‘KLIMA° vor acht’ to be broad­cast at a prime time slot. The group Gran­nies for Future has also written numerous letters to the heads of the public service broad­casters. Most recently, activ­ists from the envir­on­mental move­ment Extinc­tion Rebel­lion drew atten­tion to the urgency of compre­hensive climate coverage by occupying the NDR headquar­ters in Hamburg.

Press enquiries and further inform­a­tion: Norman Schu­mann, Tel: 0178 4086086; Friederike Mayer, Tel: 0176 20071497; Email: presse@klimavoracht.de; Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/KlimaVorAcht; LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/klimavoracht; Face­book: https://www.facebook.com/Klimavor8

Further links: Crowd­funding campaign: https://www.startnext.com/klima-vor-acht; ‘Peti­tion for Climate Before Eight’ campaign: ‘Peti­tion for Climate Before Eight’; Appeal from Gran­nies for Future: Appeal from Gran­nies for Future