In July 2014 ZDF broadcast rankings of Germany’s best men and women, presented as the result of a Forsa poll. It then emerged that the editors had moved people up or down. Franz Beckenbauer, for example, had been moved from place 31 to place 9.
Program director Norbert Himmler called it ein grober Verstoß gegen die Programmrichtlinien des Senders, a gross breach of the broadcaster’s program guidelines, and said it damaged ZDF’s credibility. ZDF dissolved the team responsible, and Himmler proposed a set of rules for the use of polls in programs.