Born in Stuttgart in 1950, Wolf Bauer studied Journalism and History of
Art at the universities of Munich and Berlin. He initially began
working from 1976 as a political features writer for the ZDF programme
"Kennzeichen D".
In 1980, Wolf Bauer came to UFA Film- und Fernsehproduktion as an
editor and producer and has served as executive producer for
UFA Film & TV Produktion since 1991. From 1991 to 2015 he was CEO of the
UFA Group and from 2015 to 2017 Co-CEO. Since the founding of
FremantleMedia in 2000, he has also sat on the board of this globally
active production company. FremantleMedia is the international
production arm of the RTL Group which also includes UFA. Under his
leadership, UFA has developed into a highly efficient production group
with eight subsidiaries which have continuously expanded their leading
market position as creator of content in Germany in recent years. The
Group has been able to increase its turnover by more than 30 times
between 1991 and the present day. As head of UFA, Wolf Bauer founded
Grundy UFA in 1991 with Reg Grundy, the Australian game show and daily
drama pioneer. Together with Mike Murphy, the two turned it into
Europe's largest producer of daily dramas GrundyUFA. With "Gute Zeiten
Schlechte Zeiten", he introduced the "daily drama" to Germany in1992, and followed this in 2004 with the telenovela "Bianca - Path to
Happiness". In 1998, he joined forces with Prof. Nico Hofmann and
Ariane Krampe to set up teamWorx, today Germany's leading producer of
quality TV movies and fiction programmes with event character. The UFA
Group's portfolio expanded in 2000 to include entertainment formats
after a merger of the UFA's parent holding with Pearson TV and the
subsequent founding of the RTL Group. To cover the production of this
genre, GRUNDY Light Entertainemt was found. In 2002, Wolf Bauer further
expanded the Group by acquiring a majority interest in Phoenix Film. In
early 2008, he founded UFA Cinema with Thomas Peter Friedl, Prof. Nico
Hofmann and Dr. Jürgen Schuster and serves as CEO and producer. Given
the fundamental changes in the media landscape brought about by
digitalization, Wolf Bauer has transformed the UFA from a
straightforward television producer into a content creator which offers
creative solutions for a multimedia exploitation of content. This is
not only for all of the major channels in Germany but also for the
broadest range of new partners. His goal is to establish a 21st century
entertainment company whose focus is on self-created intellectual
property to be exploited via all possible channels. The founding of UFA
brand communication, the group's 8th label, and of UFA Lab, a content
developing laboratory for new media platforms, are due to this
transformation process.
Since 2001 Wolf Bauer has been a member of the Advisory Board East for
the Deutsche Bank. Together with other producers of the lobby group
film20, he successfully pushed for the creation of a central
representation for German producers. As a result of these endeavors,
the German Producers Alliance (Allianz Deutscher Produzenten) was
founded in March 2008, with Bauer a member of the joint board until
April 2012. He has also been a member of the Bertelsmann Foundation's
board of trustees since 2008.
