Lucerne native Rolf Probala will take over as Festival Director of the Rose d’Or from Urban Frye, who leaves after three years of successful work. Probala is widely regarded as an experienced television and communications professional and also has extensive experience in organizing major events. The 50th edition of the Rose d’Or Festival will start on 18 September and end with the awards presentation at the KKL Lucerne on 22 September 2010. The Rose d’Or will continue to be overseen by the Advisory Board chaired by BBC trustee David Liddiment with its President John Gough and enjoy operational support from the existing core team including Nora Kradolfer, Séghira Farhi and Dina Bänninger. The latter will continue to act as competition manager for the international competition, which will be launched in early December with the Call for Entries.

Lucerne native Rolf Probala has many years of professional experience in the television business and in organizing major events. He worked for Swiss television for nine years, most recently as head of the “Tagesschau” news programme, before joining ETH Zurich as head of communications. In 2008, he managed the 175-year anniversary for Ringier with more than 30 large events in ten countries, including two major events at the KKL Lucerne. In the last two years Rolf Probala has built a group-wide academy for Ringier. This experience will be incorporated into the further development of the Rose d’Or Academy as well as the planning of the workshops and conferencing programme. In recent years the Rose d’Or has also increasingly become a forum and key meeting point for decision-makers from across the global media industry, which will be further developed in the future.

Over the past three years, outgoing festival director Urban Frye has continued to expand the festival’s format and strengthened the position of the Rose d’Or as one of the most important awards in the television area. The board of directors of Rose d’Or AG thanks Urban Frye for his deep commitment and his efforts and wishes him all the best for his future career and his next projects.
The Rose d’Or is one of the most important television entertainment festivals in the world. After Montreux, which was the first venue between 1961 and 2003, the festival has been held in Lucerne since 2004. The core of the festival continues to be the international competition for television entertainment programmes.