Media & Entertainment

Cologne – October 30, 2026 -- The new social reality series "Vibes – Find Your Fire" arrives in the ARD Mediathek on November 5, 2026, with ten episodes of 50 minutes each. TV star Motsi Mabuse accompanies nine women who spend twelve days together in a villa on Rhodes.

The participants do not know each other and are at very different points in their lives. What they share is a wish for change, sensuality, closeness to themselves and the courage to give their own needs more room.

Mabuse leads the group with two experts at her side

Mabuse acts as confidante and motivator. She listens, asks questions and pushes the women to look at uncomfortable topics. Clinical psychologist and psychotherapist Hedda Hess and sexological bodyworker Stella Sieger support her.

KANSAS CITY – October 30, 2026 -- Two Kansas City haunted attractions, Edge of Hell (open since 1975) and Beast Haunted Attraction (open since 1991), build their scares on more than a monster in a mask, says industry spokesperson Amber Arnett-Bequeaith, known as the Queen of Haunts.

Sound, smell and touch do the heavy lifting

According to Arnett-Bequeaith, the real work happens before you see the monster. A scream from somewhere unseen builds anticipation. A damp, musty odor hints that something has been lurking for years. An unfamiliar texture or a dark passage gives the imagination room to run.

Smell has particularly strong connections to brain systems involved in emotion and memory. Combined with sight and sound, it can make an imaginary world feel convincing enough to trigger an instinctive response.

Mainz – October 29, 2026 -- A new documentary from ARD Wissen, "Meine Träume – Was verraten sie über mich?" (My Dreams – What Do They Reveal About Me?), is streaming now in the ARD Mediathek. It asks whether people are helpless against their nightmares or can learn to shape them.

Nightmares affect 3 to 7 percent of healthy adults every week

People spend about a third of their lives asleep, and they dream even if they don't remember it. According to the film, roughly 3 to 7 percent of healthy adults have at least one nightmare a week. People with mental illness or trauma have them far more often. A so-called nightmare disorder can be severely distressing, because fear and negative feelings from sleep can spill into daily life.

Hamburg – October 29, 2026 -- NDR television chef Zora Klipp starts a six-part culinary road trip through northern Germany on Friday, October 30, at 9:15 p.m. on NDR Fernsehen. The series "Zora schmeckt's – Zu Gast in ..." runs weekly and is also available in the ARD Mediathek.

Six towns, six food scenes

Klipp visits Lüneburg, St. Peter-Ording, Bad Zwischenahn, Wismar, Goslar and Nordhorn. Each 30-minute episode covers regional specialties, unusual restaurant concepts and the people who shape a town's food culture. She describes herself as a cook and a thorough northerner who loves food.

Along the way she stops at restaurants, cafés, delicatessens, coffee roasteries, smokehouses, bars and breweries. She also goes behind the scenes and cooks and works alongside the locals herself. The episodes cover sweet and savory classics, modern takes on them, the craft behind the dishes, and what gives a place its flavor.

Saint Paul – October 29, 2026 -- PBS will air the documentary Medicine Ball on November 9 at 8 pm CST, during Native American Heritage Month. The film follows two Native college basketball players at the University of Minnesota Morris.

Two athletes play on a former boarding school site

Dakota/Diné filmmaker Leya Hale directed the film. It tracks Lexus Redthunder and LeRoy Staples Fairbanks IV through college life and basketball on a campus built on the site of a former Native boarding school. The film shows basketball as a way to carry culture forward, build community and find joy amid adversity.

Hale said: "Medicine Ball is about more than basketball."

Munich/Leipzig – October 29, 2026 -- The 32nd José Carreras Gala airs live from Leipzig on Wednesday, December 16, at 8:15 p.m. on MDR, HR and SWR, with a parallel livestream in the ARD Mediathek. It is the first time three ARD broadcasters have carried the charity event together.

Carreras turns 80 on December 5

The tenor and foundation founder celebrates his 80th birthday on December 5, and the organizers say the performers backing him this year are the best present. The gala raises money for the fight against leukemia and related diseases. Hosts Stephanie Müller-Spirra and Sven Lorig, both foundation ambassadors, return to present the show alongside Carreras.

Mainz – October 29, 2026 -- German public broadcasters ZDF, 3sat and phoenix will cover the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Turkey, from November 9 to 20, 2026, with daily news segments, documentaries and streaming premieres.

Turkey hosts the 31st UN climate conference, while Australia chairs the negotiations. The source notes that the Pacific region and its island states are especially threatened by climate change, and that implementation and financing of projects will be debated heavily this year.

Reporters on the ground in Antalya

ZDF environment reporters Winnie Heescher and Elisa Miebach are on site, as is "NANO" presenter Gregor Steinbrenner for 3sat. ZDFheute adds fact checks, explainer articles, an updated KlimaRadar and information on the new Climate Change Performance Index. Reels, galleries and graphics will run on ZDF's social channels.

LONDON – October 29, 2026 -- McLaren's car for the Mexico City Grand Prix carries a 'Livery of Dreams': bespoke sticker artwork built from fan wishes submitted earlier in the season to Velo and the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team.

The artwork also appears on paddock screens and in the garage during race weekend. Adult Velo consumers and motorsport enthusiasts from around the world were invited to share their most unique fan wishes, and the best submissions became part of the design.

Each sticker on the car encodes a real fan wish

The source highlights three examples:

Berlin – October 29, 2026 -- WELT TV will air the roughly 43-minute documentary "Vantara - Sein Herz für Tiere" ("Vantara - A Heart for Animals") for the first time on Sunday, 1 November 2026, at 14:50. The film goes inside an Indian rescue center where injured and formerly captive wildlife get a second chance.

One of its stories centers on the elephant Leelavati. She was left tied up when a circus tent caught fire, and burning debris fell on her body. She suffered severe burns but survived, and she now receives medical care at Vantara.

Three former German circus elephants now live in Gujarat

The film traces one story that begins in Germany. After decades of performing and traveling in a circus, the elephants could no longer stay there. Contact with Vantara came through the animal welfare groups PETA Deutschland and PETA India, and three of the former circus elephants now live at the center in the Indian state of Gujarat.

Birmingham – October 29, 2026 -- A free three-part docuseries about the Catholic rite of exorcism, "In Jesus' Name," premieres Oct. 28 at 4 pm ET on EWTN+ and EWTN.com, with new episodes on Oct. 29 and Oct. 30.

The series trades Hollywood horror for first-person accounts

EWTN Studios and Cumberland Creative produced the series. It features experienced exorcists and survivors of demonic oppression describing how, in their telling, evil enters human lives and how it can be overcome.

Father Dan Reehil, a diocesan exorcist in the Diocese of Nashville and national director of Radio Maria USA, says in the opening scenes that the goal is not to glorify or overly dramatize the devil's work. He describes it as education about spiritual warfare.