 In 1996 Johannes B. Kerner started his first daily afternoon talkshow on Sat 1 simply called "Kerner".In 1997 he switched to a public television channel again, this time to ZDF (as an independent freelancer) where he was a host for the weekly sports review "das aktuelle sportstudio" (until 2006) and a number of soccer games played by the German national team.He served as main host for all games broadcast by ZDF during the FIFA World Cup 2006 in Germany in front of a large live audience in Berlin, for which he receive a "Deutscher Fernsehpreis" award (comparable to an Emmy).