After graduating from the Ellenrieder-Gymnasium in Konstanz in 1979 , he studied at the Freie Universität in Berlin from 1979 to 1981 in the fields of theater, film and television studies , German literature and journalism, from 1981, then at the Universität zu Köln.

Since 1983, Lienhard wors for the ARD broadcast channel WDR in Cologne/Germany. There he began at the daily news programme HIER&HEUTE and extended its freelance reporting on cultural issues. He is one of the inventors of the television program ZAK .

Since 1987 he is a staff member at the ARD KULTURWELTSPIEGEL, today called „ttt“.
Overall, he realized 70 television documentaries for ARD , ZDF, RIAS-TV, Deutsche Welle Fernsehen, RTL , Kabel1 , 3sat and ARTE.

Since 1999 he has been a reporter for the French-German TV channel ARTE, especially for ARTE-INFO , ARTE-CULTURE , ARTE-JOURNAL .

He reported for these newscasts on cultural events from all over the world.

He produced television documentaries by example about Katarina Witt, Désirée Nick, Quentin Crisp, Georgette Dee, Mario Wirz, Philip Baron von Böselager ( together with Christian Pricelius ) and Günter Grass.

In 1981 he received the Literature Prize „Jugend schreibt“ for his story „Gundolfs golden socks“, which he produced 1981 together with filmdirector Douglas Wolfsperger, titled “Martin” . Tim Lienhard played the title role in „Martin“ itself and entered also in other films, among others by Douglas Wolfsperger as an actor. In the film „Expositus“ by Michael Brynntrup Tim Lienhard embodies himself, he plays in this film a major role .

2013 Tim Lienhard produced his first feature film „ONE ZERO ONE – The story of Cybersissy & BayBjane“.

Together with Winfried Schwamborn Tim Lienhard edited at Pahl – Rugenstein publishing the book „Begründungsbuch“ (1984) .

Tim Lienhard published, among others in DIE ZEIT and  SPIEGEL.