Germany has two big national public TV channels, Das Erste/ARD and ZDF. They generally compete and provide different services, which means many duplicated resources and functions. To be more economical, they do however cooperate within several areas. One peculiar example of the latter is the Mittagsmagazin, an hour long current affairs programme broadcast at one o'clock on both channels. The two broadcasters take turn producing the programme on alternating weeks, previously originating them in different cities, with ARD-Mittagsmagazin broadcast from Munich and ZDF-Mittagsmagazin broadcast from Mainz. In order to save money on studios and technical staff, this year the broadcasters agreed to broadcast the two programmes from the same studio in Berlin. ARD made the move in January, while the first edition of ZDF-Mittagsmagazin from Berlin was broadcast on April 3.
The old ZDF-Mittagsmagazin had a look heavily based on ZDF's main news programme ZDF Heute, coming from the same studio and using similar graphics and sounds. The new "ZDF Mima" got a distinct identity, created by Dutch studio Cape Rock.
The central identifying aspect of the new graphics package are cut-through flat areas in four layers that are used for the logo and others graphics and that can be filled with different images. This combines starkly iconic shapes with vivid imagery in a novel way that sets the tone for different segments.
