Shortly before his 88th birthday, former ZDF sports director Karl Senne died on Monday. This was announced by the television station, citing his family. Born in East Westphalia, he was a co-founder of the program “Aktuelles Sportstudio” and presented the program 128 times between 1981 and 1992, according to ZDF information. “Karl Senne was one of the first journalists on ZDF. Elegant and articulate,” said ZDF editor-in-chief Peter Frey.
In 1962, before ZDF began broadcasting, Senne switched from WDR television in Cologne to the then newly established Second German Television. He was also the presenter of “Telemotor” for many years. As a motorsport expert, he had to deal with sad moments. This included the accidental deaths of top German pilots Manfred Winkelhock and Stefan Bellof, who were guests in the sports studio at the beginning of 1985 and then died in an accident within four weeks. “That touched me deeply,” Senne once said.
From 1971, the graduate sports teacher was in charge of the “Sports Information” editorial department and then, from 1973, of the “Aktuelle Sportstudios” editorial department. From 1984 he was deputy to the then head of sports, Dieter Kürten, before he headed the main editorial team for sports from 1989 to 1995. Karl Senne would have turned 88 on October 26.
