As ZDF announces, Lissy Ishag, Tim Niedernolte and Babette von Kienlin will be leaving the magazine. It was previously known that “Hello Germany” was getting a new moderator. From July 2026, Marvin Fischer will moderate the news and tabloid magazine in the late afternoon, alternating with Sandra Maria Gronewald.

A ZDF spokeswoman says: “The current four presenters (Tim Niedernolte, Sandra Maria Gronewald, Lissy Ishag, Babette von Kienlin) result from the merging of the presenter teams from ‘hello deutschland’ and the program ‘drehscheibe’, which was discontinued at the end of 2023.” Then she adds the crucial part: “By reducing it to two influential people, ZDF hopes that the format will be even more recognizable.”

The three presenters have been with ZDF for over 10 years

If you look at the procedure from the outside, the argument can be understood, but an active decision against the previous faces is still necessary. After all, one of them could have been named as the only second host – instead, someone else from the outside was hired. However, ZDF did not explain exactly what the dynamics behind it were.

The approach is particularly notable because all three people are ZDF protagonists who have been around for decades. Niedernolte, for example, began moderating the “logo!” children’s news for Mainz in 2010. He was then part of the moderator team for the “heute” main news from 2014. Lissy Ishag, however, became Yvonne Ransbach’s successor at “Hello Germany” in July 2013. It is not clear at this point whether both will receive new tasks in Mainz. Meanwhile, Kienlin was recently only on duty as a substitute.