Since 26 December 1952, Germany’s main evening news, the Tagesschau, has run on ARD. For decades its place has been fixed at exactly 8 p.m., opened by a gong. In 2020 and 2021, more than 11.6 million people watched it on average. At its 60th anniversary in 2012, Georg Mascolo, then editor-in-chief of Der Spiegel, described it this way: Immer pünktlich, immer zuverlässig, fast immer fehlerfrei und ein kleines bisschen humorlos. Always on time, always reliable, almost always without errors, and a tiny bit humorless. He called it the Glockenschlag der Republik, the stroke of the bell of the republic.