To recognize Florida Entertainment for its performance in the year 2021 is coming to an end – where should you start? Perhaps with the fact that the production company was behind what is certainly the most surprising and, without question, one of the most important television moments of the year. Whereby “moment” is an understatement: In the spring, the #non-self-evident document lasted over seven hours, in which the entire shift of a nurse was shown in real time, in order to draw attention to the nursing emergency in this country, which has not only existed since Corona.
The documentary exceeded the scope of the actually 15 minutes of broadcasting in “Joko and Klaas against ProSieben”, for which ProSieben cannot be praised enough for its flexibility and thus reached a large audience. Almost six million people took a quick look at least once, even if considerably fewer stayed on it the entire time. Some programs on German television now claim the attribution “Wundertüte”, but none of them fits as well as the 15 minutes “Joko & Klaas Live”, in which the two often only play a supporting role. And if you look at the always very good ratings, the audience obviously loves the fact that everything is possible from camera images from the stomach of Joko & Klaas to a vaccination appeal by the future Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
If you look back on Florida in 2021, then right at the beginning there is also “Who is stealing the show from me?” eye – and the proof that you can turn the umpteenth quiz format on German television into something very special. This is ensured not only by the wealth of ideas when thinking up the various games or the curious idea of promoting the moderation of the next edition as the main prize – but again by the fact that everything is possible within the format. For example, a wonderful homage to television when Bastian Pastewka wins.
But Florida Entertainment is now much more than the production company behind the various ideas of Joko and Klaas, even if that is still the core of the company, which broke away from the Endemol Shine Group at the beginning of 2019 and since then of Arne Kreutzfeldt and Thomas Schmitt is led. In a DWDL interview in 2019, the two said: “It would be sad if we didn’t have any further ambitions. After all, the core business with Joko and Klaas is only scalable to a limited extent.” And: “We want to transfer the Florida brand to other genres.”
In 2021 you can say: It really worked out “excellently”. Because Florida Entertainment succeeded in something at the German Television Award in 2021, which is also a rarity for larger production houses: a hat trick. There were three prizes in all three major areas of entertainment, information and fiction. “Who is stealing the show from me?” was awarded as the best show, the # not self-evident documentary as the best infotainment – and then the improv production “Forever Summer 90” with Charly Huebner in the leading role also won the television award for best film.
Aside from that, Florida also had a hand in one of the more refreshing programs in this federal election campaign: In the area of information, they are working together with Louis Klamroth and are involved in his production company K2H, which has produced the “ProSieben federal election show”, among other things. That with “Baywatch Berlin” in cooperation with Studio Bummens one of the most successful podcasts in the country comes from Florida is only mentioned in passing.
In the end, it remains to be said: Arne Kreutzfeldt and Thomas Schmitt have long since made more of Florida Entertainment than a pure Joko & Klaas-Butze, which manages to deliver nonsense and relevance in a form that is equally worth seeing like hardly any other production house. That is why the two of them are among the 2021 screen heroes, representing the entire Florida team.
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